Retribution
by Parker314
Summary: A Team Rocket Researcher rebels against his employers, but gets shot for his efforts and is left to die. Fate doesn't feel like letting him die, however, as he wakes up alive and well... as a Pichu? Who the hell wrote this? Rated T for language/violence
1. Chapter 1

Pokémon is copyright to Nintendo and Gamefreak. I do not own Pokémon.

**Here it goes then, the first chapter of my first story on . Writing it went pretty smoothly as I've had this story in my head for a while now. So please be nice and review it. Be honest, what are the things I should improve? Which grammatical mistakes have I made? Just spout out all your venom in the reviews section, I can use all the guiding I can get.**

**Rated T for language and violence.**

**EDIT: Changed some stuff. Nothing too dramatic, just some spelling errors and grammatical cockups.**

Chapter 1

**(Nicholas Hale's POV)**

That day I awoke later than usual and stretched my body as I noticed that the sun was already up quite high, which meant that midday was approaching. I looked around the clearing I called 'home' to see if I still had anything left to eat from the day before when I spotted a small blue round-shaped berry lying about and picked it up.

"Really? An Oran berry is all I got left from that scavenge hunt? Better than nothing I guess." I grumbled as I took a large bite from it. Oran berry's were pretty hard and had an odd mixture of all kinds of different flavors. I didn't exactly like them and preferred Pecha berry's as they were much softer and sweeter than Oran's. Oran berries were really handy though; as they had the ability to re-energize tired Pokémon and even heal wounds. They were considered important to have with you at all times, especially when you were far from home. Too much of these blue berries however - especially for someone as small as I - could result in intoxication similar to getting drunk when drinking too much alcohol. A danger I was well aware of as it had happened to me before.

"_Getting drunk in a big and dark forest like this could be dangerous for the health of a lone Pichu, in more than one way._" I thought to myself. "_It's a lot harder to run away, for instance._"

After finishing up the Oran I checked the area once more, hoping that I might have overlooked something to eat before. Unfortunately, it seemed like there was nothing left.

"A big and tasty apple is what I need right now, which means that I need to go into the deeper parts of the forest again to fetch some food... Fun times." I said to myself with a sigh.

And so I set off into the forest, leaving the clearing behind me, to go get some food and to do some exploring while I was at it. I did do some exploring before, but never for too long as I didn't want to get too far away from the clearing as I wasn't really fond of the forest. Even after living in it for more than a month I still found the place to be quite grim and scary. Though I did suspect that my small stature might have added to the dark and intimidating atmosphere of the place.

"Now where is that stupid apple tree at?" I wondered after walking around in the bushes for a while. I knew there was one around here somewhere as I had visited it before, but had trouble remembering where exactly. The fact that everything looked so alike for a small Pokémon like me didn't exactly help either; big trees, bigger trees and huge trees. I was eventually rewarded for my long search with the sight of the large, sturdy looking apple tree filled with tasty looking apples.

"Jackpot." I said with a wide grin on my muzzle.

The area around the tree was deserted, which was kind of odd seeing as this forest was filled with all kinds of Pokémon that loved eating apples. In fact, last time I was at the tree, there was a whole clan of Pichu, Pikachu and some Raichu around to eat from it. Not surprising as the entire Pichu evolution line loved eating apples. They were quite curious when they saw a lone Pichu that didn't belong to their clan walking alone in the forest and tried to approach me. I wasn't exactly too happy with their company as I liked my privacy, so I simply told them to back off, which they all did. Or at least, all of them except a Raichu who was probably some kind of an elder.

He had asked me why I was alone and if I was perhaps exiled or an orphan, to which I had replied that it was none of his business. When he kept bothering me and I had enough of his nagging I just said that I was a demonic parasite who kills and eats Pokémon and then takes on their appearance, that I didn't really like the look of my current appearance and that I was looking for something bigger, after which I just stared at him with a smirk on my face.

I still chuckled whenever I thought of that stunned look on his face when I had said that. That was a good day.

My grumbling stomach reminded me that it was still hungry so I decided to get to work. I Picked out the biggest and tastiest looking apple in the tree and started charging up energy in my cheeks. I had to hit it on a good spot so that it would fall of the tree unharmed, which required both accuracy and power. Both of which Pichu's don't exactly excel at. Came to think of it, there's nothing a Pichu is good at, as it's simply a baby Pokémon that relies on its parents or clan for food and protection.

"Bah, I'm more of a self-reliant person anyway!" I shouted as I shot up a jolt of electricity aimed at the apple, missing it completely.

"Hmmm, I forgot how bad I am at aiming." I muttered when I realized how big of a failure that had been.

"Well I don't need to be a better shot, I just need to shoot out more jolts!" I yelled, shooting off several jolts of electricity rapidly towards the tree, all of them missing their mark and striking the tree instead. For a second I feared that I might have put the thing on fire but I quickly realized that my attacks weren't strong enough to incarnate things.

"Note to self: practice the aiming and power of my electric moves." I said to myself with a weary sigh.

Practicing was going to have to wait however, as I suddenly heard a buzzing sound coming from up the tree behind the thick layer of leaves. "What in the…" is all I was able to say before a whole group of nasty looking winged bugs with black stripes on their yellow bodies came out of the layer of leaves. They also looked angry.

Very angry.

"_Well at least it seems I hit something_."

"Good morning, gentlemen... or ladies? (Really hard to tell with bugs) Sorry for disturbing you and all, but errrrm… I gotta go!" I said with a sheepish grin before quickly turning around, dropping myself to all fours and dashing away from the displeased bugs as fast as I could. Of course, they weren't about to let me get away and started chasing me whilst buzzing louder than ever.

They were gaining on me very quickly as my small legs couldn't carry me as fast as their wings could fly them, and for a moment it seemed like I was going to get caught by these buzzing monsters.

Then one of the worst things that could happen in a scenario like this, _happened_. In my rush, I didn't see a root from a tree sticking out of the ground and tripped over it. "Crap, crap , CRAP!" was all I could say as I saw the Beedrill closing in on me and one diving from the sky with its needles ready to strike and kill me.

Before it could strike however, I heard a feminine voice shout out '_Bullet seed'_ and saw how the attacking Beedrill got hit by a stream of seeds, knocking him back a bit. Unsure of what happened and what to do, I heard the voice shout out once again.

"C'mon, don't just sit there you idiot! Run!"

That, she didn't have to tell me twice as I got back up and dashed off towards the direction of the voice, when I saw the Pokémon it belonged to. It was a small blue shaped ball shaped Pokémon with leaves sticking out on its head. "_An Oddish, female it seems_." I thought to myself. Always had to watch out and try not to guess a Pokémon's gender from its voice alone, as I had encountered male Pokémon with feminine voices before. This reminded me of some awkward encounters he had in the past, making me shiver.

"Move it, if you don't want to get paralyzed!" She shouted as I saw an orange-coloured spore heading towards the Beedrill. "_Stun Spore, _very han-" I managed to say before she interrupted me shouting "Stop yapping! The spore will only slow them down. We need to get the hell out of here!" after which she started running, with me following her once again.

We ran through the forest for a few minutes when we started to hear the buzzing behind us again, the sound becoming louder and louder as time passed.

"Well, those bugs are persistent, if nothing else. A quick word of advice: keep running!" I shouted whilst trying to pick up the pace.

Suddenly two more Beedrill appeared out of a bush in front of us and blocked our path. "Backup for the already dangerous bugs? This just keeps getting better and better!" I said as I saw how the other Beedrill had reached us now too. There were 7 of them in total, all surrounding us in a circle and glaring at us with their blood-red eyes.

They moved in to attack and I saw how the Oddish used Bullet seed once again in an attempt to hold them off. I decided to follow her example and shot of some jolts of electricity which the Beedrill easily dodged.

"It's no use dammit! My Bullet seed has almost no effect on bugs and your Thundershock is worthless," the Oddish shouted, before being struck from behind by a Twinneedle of one of the Beedrill. "Ouch." She managed to mutter out before falling down on the ground, unconscious I hoped.

I muttered some curses as I launched another series of Thundershocks towards the Beedrill and actually hit one of them. It didn't have much effect though as the Beedrill simply shook it off and dived needles first towards me.

Just mere moments before I was going to get hit, the Beedrill smashed into an invisible wall bringing him to a full stop.

"What the hell?" I said, unsure of what just happened. The other Beedrill were now also trying to attack, but were unable to reach both me and the unconscious Oddish as they were blocked off by this mysterious force.

"_Is that... Could that be Reflect? But who?_" I wondered before getting the answer as a tall, pinkish Pokémon jumped out of a bush and slammed its fist, which also happened to be on fire, into one of the bugs. It dropped onto the ground after getting hit by it. "_Fire punch_" I thought "_That's one mean Fire punch…_" Three other bugs also got hit by the punches the pink Pokémon was dealing out and dropped to the ground.

The pink Pokémon then continued by simply charging in and slamming into the remaining Beedrill, taking out another one of them.

"_Tackle? No, no, no. This is more brutal and powerful than Tackle. Take Down? Yes, that must be it_." I thought to myself, still surprised by the sudden interference of the Pokémon that I now knew was a Wigglytuff. I wasn't complaining though, seeing as I was going to get murdered by those bugs without its help.

It seemed like the Beedrill finally understood that it'd be wise to just run instead of fight, as the Wigglytuff was too strong for them to take on. The Wigglytuff simply stared at the direction where they fled to, until I decided to talk.

"Uhm, hello?" I asked.

The Wigglytuff turned around to look at me with its large blue eyes, but didn't say a word at all.

"Thank you for your help, miss…?" I asked, hoping to find out what on earth just happened.

For a second I saw some confusion in the Pokémon's eyes. "It's Greg," the Wigglytuff said with a masculine voice. "And last time I checked, I'm not female."

"_Ah shit, how typical,"_ I thought "_screwing up in the first conversation I have with the Pokémon who just saved my life. Looks like guessing a Pokémon's gender from its looks alone is also a no-no." _

The Wigglytuff - or Greg - shifted his attention to the Oddish that also happened to have saved my life. I was just racking up debts that day.

"The name's Hale and I'm very sorry for the misunderstanding, I just assumed that you were female," I said apologetic "with the pink fur and all."

"_Did I seriously just say that? Oh good going Hale, you're such an unbelievable idiot_." I thought to myself again. "Not that it makes you look girlish or anything, but… Okay I'm just going to shut up now." I said with a sigh.

"Don't worry about that, it happens to me more often than you think." Greg said as he was walking over to the downed Oddish.

"Hmmm, direct hit from Twinneedle. Poisoning cannot be ruled out. Should be interesting to see how it turns out." I heard him mutter while examining the Oddish.

He then turned back to me and reached for his pouch he had hanging around his neck. He pulled out 2 berries I recognized as a Sitrus and a Pecha berry and gave them to me.

"Your friend here got a direct hit from a Twinneedle, lucky for her that she is part poison, which means that the bug weakness of her grass-type is negated. However, Twinneedle is also on of the few attacks that can poison anything. Even, the normally immune to poisoning, poison types. I'm unsure if this will be the case here but keep the Pecha berry in case she is poisoned. She's going to be knocked out for a while, but when she wakes up you should try and mash this Sitrus berry and feed it to her so she can regain her strength more quickly, do you understand?" He was speaking quickly and I was astounded by the sheer knowledge of the pink Pokémon and wasn't sure how to reply. Not that he gave me the time to do so as he turned around and walked away again.

"Good.", he said whilst walking away "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some urgent business to take care of. Have a nice day."

I stood there looking at the berries, still very confused.

The Wigglytuff turned around once more "Oh and by the way, I believe you were trying to acquire one of these, right?" he said, tossing an apple towards me which I managed to catch.

"Yes, Th- Thanks." I said perplexed.

"Not a problem, goodbye now!" he said before turning around and started walking again.

"_Well… looks like I scored some booty after all._" I thought to myself as I turned around to look at the unconscious Oddish. "_Now_ _how the heck am I going to get her to safety?_"

A few hours later, darkness started kicking in and I was eating dinner back over at my clearing, which consisted of half of the apple Greg had given me. I kept the other half in reserve for when the Oddish decided to wake up. I felt very tired after the long day and having to transport her to my 'home'. Which wasn't all that hard when you think about it. After attempting to carry her and barely making any progress, I just decided to 'roll' her along with me. Using her ball-shaped body as an actual ball. It worked out pretty well, actually.

"_I think it's in my best interest that I tell her I just carried her all the way to my clearing._" I thought to myself, chuckling. "_It also sounds more awesome that way._"

My chain of thoughts was interrupted when I heard the Oddish waking up with a yawn and some grunts.

"Ugh, where am I?" she said, looking around the clearing until she spotted me. "Oh, it's you again. What the hell happened?" she as she was trying to get up. She got onto her legs, but instantly collapsed again with a grunt.

"I doubt your going to be able to get to your feet right now, or anytime soon for that matter." I said with a faint smile on my muzzle "You got hit pretty hard, you see."

"No shit right? Stupid Beedrill and their stupid needles." She grumbled, before continuing with a puzzled look on her muzzle. "Wait, how the heck are we still alive anyways? Don't tell me _you _took on all of those Beedrill by yourself!"

I was really tempted to say that I did, but realized how unlikely it sounded so I just decided to tell her the truth.

"Nah, after you got knocked out cold, a Wigglytuff came in out of nowhere and went zubatshit on those bugs." I explained her with a deadpan look on my muzzle.

"A Wigglytuff?" She asked, tilting her head slightly to the left.

"Yep, his name is Greg. He took care of those Beedrill with some Fire punches."

"A **male** Wigglytuff?" She asked, tilting her head even more to the left. I was almost expecting her to fall over. "Man, I've never heard of something like that, sucks to be that guy I guess" she chuckled.

"Which reminds me. Before he left, he gave me a Sitrus and a Pecha berry to get you back to full health in case you were poisoned." I said looking slightly worried.

"Hah, don't you worry about that. I can handle some poison." She said with a grin on her face. "I don't think I've been able to introduce myself because of all that stuff that happened today. The name's Leaf."

"Nice to meet you Leaf." I said, wanting to shake paws before I realized she had none and thus kept my paw to myself. "I'm Hale."

"Hale? That's an odd name."

"Well, it's my surname. My first name is Nicholas. But I don't like the sound of that. Though you may call me Nick as well." I explained.

She gave me a confused look "That's even weirder, do you live with humans or something? Those names of yours sure sound human." She asked

"Errr no, it's a bit complicated." I said quickly, scratching the back of my head. I picked up the other half of the apple and gave it to her "Here, you must be starving." I said, wanting to change subjects.

"You guessed it." She said as she grabbed it using her vines and started taking bites from it.

"Oh, by the way, thank you for saving me today. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you." I said with a smile.

"It's nothing, really. I saw that you were in trouble and decided to give you a hand. There has to be at least someone who helps out others in this damn world." she said bluntly.

We were both quiet as Leaf kept on eating her piece of apple. When she was finished, she looked over to me and asked "So this is where you live? How did you get me over here while unconscious? Did you roll me all the way over here or something?"

"Oh no, I wouldn't dare doing that. I simply carried you. Hard work seeing as you're about the same size as I am." I said quickly "And yes, this is where I live. It's nice and quiet, I like it."

"You live alone then?"

"Yeah, I do." I said with a sharp nod.

"How come? Don't you have any family or a clan or something? I mean Pichu usually don't live on their own." She inquired.

"I got exiled from my former clan" I lied. The truth was oh so complicated and strange, I doubt she'd believe it anyways.

"You were exiled? How come?"

"I don't really want to get into all that right now. I'm very tired and would like to catch some sleep." I said, avoiding any more questions, and turned around and started heading oveer to my 'bed' made out of leaves "Feel free to stay here for the night."

**Well, that went well. Spellchecked and reviewed by myself several times. I hope I didn't make too many mistakes. I'm quite happy with its size, over 3500 words. I'm glad I can finally publish this, as I'm getting really tired from all that typing just about now.**

**Please review this, so that I know what to improve next.**

**Cheers**


	2. Chapter 2a

Pokémon is copyright to Nintendo and Gamefreak. I do not own Pokémon.

**No reviews yet? I love you guys too!**

**Well Chapter 2 is finally up. I was actually hoping to have it finished way earlier, but I was a bit busy with other stuff. It's way longer than the first one though, almost double its size (6250 words as opposed to 3360 words).**

**This one takes place about a month before Chapter 1, and deals with the events that led Hale into becoming a Pichu. The first part is a tiny bit too serious for my tastes and also quite long, but this chapter is important for Hale's background story so whatever, I got over it. **

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* * *

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Chapter 2

**(Nicholas Hale's POV)**

_**One month before**__** the events of Chapter 1, somewhere in Viridian city...**_

I woke up as a beam of sunlight shone through a gap between the curtains that blocked the view of my bedroom from the outside world, right on my face. I grunted as I looked up to my digital clock to see what time it was. I muttered some curses when I saw the clock display 11:34 in large red numbers. "_Dammit, can't even remember what time I went to bed._" I thought whilst removing some eye crust from the corner of my left eye. I looked around the room and spotted my two Pokémon. Strela, my Rankurusu whom I received as a gift from my parents when I turned 10. Back then she was still a young Yuniran, but I raised her well as she evolved into a Dubiran and then into the Rankurusu I was looking at right now. Then there was Skunker, my Skuntank who I acquired more recently.

I got out of bed as quiet as I could and headed towards the bathroom to take a shower and shave myself. Later on, when I got back to the kitchen to eat breakfast (Or lunch, seeing as it was already past twelve o'clock), I saw that Strela was already up and sitting in a corner on a bean bag. She glanced over at me and nodded to greet me. "Mornin', Strela." I said with a smile as I nodded back.

She looked into my eyes and used telepathy to speak to me. "_Good morning, boss. Did you have a goodnight's sleep_?_"_

"Slept like a rock. You?"

"_I've had better nights, had some bad dreams._"

I gave her a worried look. "Again? That's been happening a lot since we moved here."

She gave out a sigh "_Yes, it's getting a tad bit annoying actually, having these frightening dreams almost every night. Hard to get properly rested this way._"

"It might help if you told me what those dreams are about, you know." I said, hoping that she would actually tell.

"_Nah, dreams are unimportant anyways, it's probably just the change of environments that's causing them._" She told me, shrugging "_Now where the heck is that Skuntank? He's __**still**__ sleeping?_"

I knew she was just trying to avoid my questions and change subjects, but also knew that she wasn't going to tell me a damn thing anyways, so I just dropped it.

"Guess so, you know how much he values his rest. We can already get ourselves some breakfast though." I said while taking out some food from the fridge.

She smiled. "_Good_ _idea, I'm starving._"

While eating breakfast, we were joined by Skunker who finally decided to get up as well. I could see that he and Strela were having a conversation. A shame I couldn't speak the Pokémon language, so I could actually understand what they were talking about. Though I suspected they were probably arguing again, as the two of them didn't get along too well for some reason.

After a little while, Skunker simply turned his back to Strela and started eating. Strela glared at him but the Skuntank completely ignored her existence. I let out a chuckle while thinking to myself "_Typical for Skunker to just not give a shit about anything and mind his own business._". I knew that that was one of the reasons him and Strela didn't get along too well, as Strela always got annoyed by how careless and oblivious he was to the world around him.

I hoped Strela would just accept the fact that this was just the way the Skuntank was and that arguing wasn't going to change anything. Unfortunately she seemed to just get more and more fed up with him and his attitude as time passed. Then again, he had only been living here with us for about month now, so maybe she'd warm up to him later on.

"_Maybe you shouldn't have accepted him in, boss._" Strela told me, using her telepathy again.

I scowled; she had been reading my thoughts again. I really didn't like the thought of my mind being read.

"_Not my fault you think out loud._" she said with a grin on her muzzle.

I rolled my eyes and left the kitchen, heading to the living room and taking place at my work desk. I looked at some notes I wrote on a piece of paper to remind myself what I was busy working on before going to bed yesterday. I muttered some curses as I remembered why I had quit working yesterday. I got completely stuck at one part of my research, an analysis of the branched evolution tree of the Eevee-line, and had trouble finding out what to do next.

I sighed and leaned back in my comfy chair and thought about what had happened in the last few months. I had graduated from college in Hiun City in Isshu at the age of 21 about 7 months ago and moved to Viridian City in Kanto a few months later, hoping to find some work. I was in luck as only week after settling in a man named Clyde had approached me and offered me a contract to work for his company. It had some good payment and he even gifted me a certain Skunktank as a little bonus. I had to compose a report on Pokémon evolution and the moves they learned when evolving. Not that hard of an assignment I thought at first, but it was more complicated than I thought as I had hit several dead ends so far. To make matters worse, the deadline was only a few days away and the report wasn't even near to being finished yet.

"Looks like it's time to shift my ass into a higher gear." I said to myself with a smirk while cracking my fingers before focusing back on my work.

* * *

_**Three days later...**_

I walked around quite cheerfully that day as I had finally finished up the report despite the issues I had regarding Eeveelutions. Better yet, I had finished it right in time as the deadline was in one hour. I had to deliver my findings personally to my employer, Clyde. I was to meet him at 6 pm at a diner in Viridian city itself and I was not planning on arriving late. I returned both Strela and Skunker to their Pokéballs and picked up my finished report, put on my coat and trilby and left my house, locking the door behind me.

It wasn't that cold outside anymore, as spring was getting nearer. The days were getting longer and nature was slowly coming back to life after the cold winter. I reached the centre of the city, which was still sprawling with activity. People were leaving stores and store owners were busy cleaning up their shops as they were going to close soon. I saw someone miss his bus and heard him cursing while running behind it swinging his arms in an attempt to let it stop, to no avail. I saw a mother trying to comfort her weeping child who had apparently dropped his lollipop into a puddle of water on the street. While a woman who didn't seem to speak English was holding up a map, presumably asking directions, to a Police officer. From the look of the Policeman's face, I doubted he could actually understand a word of what she was saying. I chuckled to myself "_Man the city is crazy, there's always something going on and people are always rushing from one place to the other."_

It didn't take me long to reach my destination, _The Salem Diner_. Not exactly the classiest place to go for dinner, but that didn't really matter to me as that wasn't why I had come here. I went inside and looked around to see if I could spot the person who I was looking for, till I spotted him sitting at a table drinking coffee in a corner of the diner. I walked over and took of my trilby and coat, then moved back one of the chairs so I could sit on it.

"Hello there, Clyde." I said with a smile.

"Greetings Mr. Hale, it's been a while since we've last met." he said, before taking a sip from his coffee.

"Quite right. I think you'll be happy to hear that I've managed to complete the requested report." I said with a smile while taking out the binder which contained said report.

"Excellent, it's good to hear we can count on you being on time with your work." He said in his ever so emotionless voice.

I handed the report over to him and he started browsing through it, occasionally halting and reading something, before continuing again. Clyde had a cold and serious attitude, rarely showing any emotion in his voice or showing any facial expressions. He was presumably in his mid-forties and was rather tall. He wore a black suit with red tie, had a pale skin and short black hair.

"_Just your average businessman_." I thought to myself with a wry little smirk.

He finally finished reading and put the binder away in a black briefcase he was carrying with him.

"Very well, Mr. Hale." he said in his formal tone "It seems that you exceeded our expectations, for which I congratulate you. Now I do have another request for you."

"Which would be…?" I asked, curious at what it'd be

"Our head scientist would like to meet you personally, as she is interested in you."

"What do you mean with 'interested in me'?" I asked, even more curious now.

"She's interested in you working for our company as a full-time researcher. But she wants to meet you first."

"Oh," I said a little surprised at this sudden offer. "man, I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything. You only need to come along with me as I'll take to our research facility." he said.

I wasn't sure how to react on this, still stunned at the sudden offer.

Clyde picked up on my hesitation. "You don't need to decide immediately, you can just go and have a little talk with her and see what's what, then decide later on. If you don't want to join up, then you are free to go and I'll give you your payment."

"_Why am I even hesitating?_" I thought to myself "_I could really use the money and these guys pay really well. Besides, I can still make the actual decision later on._"

"Alright," I said "it's a deal Clyde."

He smirked emptily and nodded "There is a car already waiting outside for us."

That startled me. "Oh you were pretty confident in me coming along, weren't you?"

He shrugged. "I knew you were going to come with us anyway, Mr. Hale." he said before standing up. He paid the bill and walked outside with me walking behind him.

Outside, there was a grey car waiting for us. It had black-tinted windows which prevented me from looking inside. Clyde opened the door for me and I got in, while he sat down beside me.

"Now if you don't mind," Clyde said with that smirk on his face again "I'm going to have to ask you to sleep."

"Wait wha-" I managed to say before Clyde pulled out a white cloth and pressing it under my nose. I suddenly felt very tired and I was starting to black out. "_Aw shit… Chloroform._" I thought to myself before falling asleep.

* * *

Everything was dark around me, though I could still see my own body parts clearly. I could even walk around a bit, but it didn't feel like I was moving at all. "Is this a dream?"

_No._

"I thought not. If it was, I'd be sitting on a beach surrounded by beautiful naked women. Where am I then?"

_You're in your own subconsciousness._

"Eh?" I couldn't hear where that voice had come from, as it wasn't really a voice but more like a thought. "Who are you anyways?"

_It's me._

"What? Who are you?"

_It is I__._

"You already said that, but who are **you**?"

_You are Nicholas Hale._

"Yes that's correct, but that doesn't answer question. Now tell me who the heck you are and what you're doing in my subconsciousness."

I was getting annoyed.

_Just doing what I do, Hale._

"Doing what you do? Inside my head? What the heck is that supposed to mean?" I practically shouted "And tell me your name, dammit!"

**Very** annoyed.

_There is no need to become angry with me, Hale. I'm just doing my job and you should be thankful for that. Now if you'll excuse me, it seems like you are waking up again._

"Fuck you._" _I spouted.

* * *

I was waking back up indeed as I started to hear some faint voices. I also noticed that I was sitting in a comfortable chair of some sorts.

"Seems like he's finally waking up." one voice said.

"Good! I was really starting to get bored of waiting." another said, this one sounding more feminine.

The complete blackness had disappeared and I was regaining my sight, though it was very blurry.

"Where in the name of Arceus am I?" I managed to mutter out.

"Where I told you I would take you, Mr. Hale. One of our research facilities." One of the voices said that I now knew belonged to Clyde.

"Or more accurately, in my office." The feminine voice said.

"So, why the fuck did I get sedated again?" I asked. My vision was starting to return and I could start to make out several objects that showed that I was indeed sitting in some sort of office.

"I'm sorry Mr. Hale, it was a necessary precaution. This facility is one of the secret kind, you see." I heard Clyde say.

"Are you serious? A secret facility?"

"Of course he's serious Hale. Which should be quite obvious seeing as Clyde has yet to discover the term 'humour'." The woman said.

I could actually see more clearly now as I saw Clyde glare at the woman. She was sitting at a desk and had long brown hair and a tanned skin. I wondered who she was.

"So, do you mind giving me some clear answers?" I asked the two.

"Nope," the woman said "allow me to introduce myself first. The name is Rachel; I'm the head-scientist and executive of this facility."

"Beauty." I said, sarcasm dripping from the words.

"Oh my, I believe someone is a bit cranky today." Rachel said.

"I'd like to see what you'd do in my situation." I retorted, still angered by the events that had occurred the last few hours.

"Enough of this." Clyde said before she could answer back. "Rachel, tell Mr. Hale about our offer."

"Oh goody, yes. You see Hale, we are in need of some new blood in this facility. I've read your report while you were knocked out and I was impressed by the amount of information you managed to gather in such short amount of time." She said.

"You see Mr. Hale, we need someone who has a fair deal of knowledge about Pokémon evolution and its after-effects. Everything in your report is information we already have, but it seems that if we were to give you access to better equipment you'd be able to be a valuable asset to our team." Clyde continued

"Let me get this clear; You let me work on a report for about a month straight, then sedate and kidnap me when I turn it in **on time**, you then bring me to your _secret_ facility, tell me all my work was for nothing and then expect me to work for you again?" I practically yelled out, my temper flaring up once again.

"Well, that's one way to put it." Rachel said with a semi-amused look.

"Mr. Hale, we're going to ask you nicely this first time and I would advice you accept it. Our organization doesn't like 'no' for an answer, you see." Clyde said with a deadpan look

I looked at the both of them. "_Are they threatening me now? These people clearly are out of their Arceusdamn minds._" I thought, before turning my attention to Clyde "I don't like to be threatened and I don't care about, whatever your little organization's name is, little no no's policy!"

I could see a glint of anger in Clyde's eyes before he spoke up with that emotionless voice again. "Our 'little' organization is called Team Rocket, and I suggest you show some respect."

Rachel sighed "Hale, you're not making this easy. Just accept our offer, you won't regret it."

"What happened to the 'have a little talk first and decide later' attitude then?" I asked still very annoyed.

"As we said before, I suggest you accept right now while were still asking you the friendly way." Clyde said.

"I'm not about to agree to do something while under pressure, thank you very much." I replied with a smirk.

"Very well then," Clyde said while walking towards the door and opening it. "please escort Mr. Hale over to his quarters so he can think about our offer." he told 2 men who were standing outside and were seemingly guarding the door.

Moments later, I found myself being 'escorted' (more like dragged) from the office to my room. The two men pushed me inside and locked the door behind me, making me unable to leave. I wanted to go over and start slamming and yelling at the door but realized there was not point in that anyways. Instead, I wanted to take Strela's Pokéball and let her out so she could blast the door open. Unfortunately, both my Pokéballs were missing. "_Crap, they must have taken them away while I was sleeping." _I thought while letting out some more curses.

I looked around in the room I was in. It was quite small and it didn't have any windows, only some drawers, a desk and a bed. I went over to the bed and sat on it, thinking about the mess I was in. "_So Clyde works for this Team Rocket. That name somehow sounds familiar…_" I thought while trying to remember where I had heard that name before. "_Team Rocket…where do I know that name from, dammit." _I pondered until I suddenly remembered again._ "Team Rocket! Of course! I read an article about them in the newspaper a few weeks ago! Oh man, this is really really really bad." _I thought while thinking back about that article. It had said how Team Rocket had been stealing Pokémon and valuable items to sell on the black market or to use for their own profits. They worked mostly underground and bribed their way around the law. A bunch of no-good thugs basically.

I laid down on the bed trying to figure out what my next move would be when I suddenly noticed there was an air vent in the wall next to the bed. I stood up on top of my bed and managed to get rid of the railing after I fiddled with it. I hauled myself up and into the vent and started crawling through it. It was quite narrow and hard to make good progress but I kept crawling on.

"_At least the shaft is strong enough to carry my weight._" I thought to myself "I_ have to get my Pokéballs back and find a way to get the hell out of this place._"

I had been moving for about 10 minutes when I suddenly noticed another vent, but this one was on the bottom. I looked through the railing and saw a room filled with cages, all of which contained Pokémon. "Mother of Arceus." I muttered out. There were at least 30 of them, they were quite small and I could make out some larger Pokémon in some of them that could barely move as they lacked the space to do so. "_A bit like how I feel in this shaft then,_" I thought before spotting a man and a woman sitting at a table near the entrance of the room, they were both dressed in black and had a large crimson 'R' on their chests.

"_Ack, shit_. _Of course the place is guarded by those thugs._".

I pondered about what I should do next when I spotted my coat and trilby laying on top of another table, close to the air vent. Better yet, I also spotted 2 Pokéballs on it. **My** 2 Pokéballs.

"_Well, well, well._" I thought with a grin on my face "_How nice of them to put my Pokémon in such close reach._"

I glanced over at the two Rockets and saw how they were busy talking and laughing. "_Guess I'll just have bust out of this shaft, make a run for my Pokéballs and take those two out. That should work._"

I silently removed the railings from the vent and dropped down on the ground, behind a cage. The Pokémon inside, a Marowak, was startled by my sudden appearance but didn't make any noise. The two Rockets hadn't noticed nor heard me as they continued their conversation.

I quietly made my way over to the table with my stuff on it, grabbed Strela's Pokéball and sent her out. She looked around the room to familiarize herself, then glanced over at me and shook her head.

"_What did you get yourself into this time, boss_?" She asked, using her telepathy.

The Rockets, having heard the commotion, came over and gawped at the sight of the two of us standing next to the cages.

"A whole lot of Miltank dung." I said to Strela, before turning to the two Rockets. "Hello there!"

"What are you doing here intruder? Explain yourself before I beat the living crap out of you!" The man threatened with a glare.

Strela turned to them and used telepathy again "_Greetings._ _The name is Strela. And I've been sent here to fuck some shit up_." After which she just smirked.

Both Rocket's winced at the telepathic threat and reached for their Pokéballs. Three of them were sent out in total; Two Ratatta came out of the two Pokéballs the man had thrown, and a bat like Pokémon with a huge mouth and four pointy teeth from the woman's ball.

"Golbat, use Poison Sting!" the woman shouted.

The Golbat obeyed her master's order and shot series of purple needles from its mouth, right at Strela.

"_Ha, I'll send those right back_!" Strela told me using her telepathy once more before her eyes lit up in a blue glow. The needles were put to a halt as they lit up in the same blue glow, before being sent back to its source. The bat Pokémon tried to dodge but couldn't get away in time and was hit pretty badly.

Meanwhile, while Strela was distracted, the two Ratatta came into play as well as they both charged in for a double tackle which, thanks to a warning I shouted out, she managed to block just in time by using Protect. It seemed like the two rats had hurt themselves badly by slamming into the barrier and things were not getting any better for them as Strela used Psychic to slam the both of them into one of the cages, knocking them unconscious.

The Golbat was still completely conscious however as his wings started glowing all of the sudden, before light blue 'S' shaped energy disks were released from them and which were heading for Strela.

She dodged them easily by jumping up in the air, where she put her hands closely together and started forming a silver ball of energy.

"_Eat this!_" She shouted before the ball reached it's maximum size. "_Flash canon_!" The bat's eyes widened as a massive silver coloured beam was fired at it, which hit it straight on. knocking it back and smashing him into the wall behind it.

"That takes care of that." I said with a smirk on my face.

The Rocket's looked scared now and quickly returned their Pokémon, before running off, presumably trying to get to the alarm button. Strela didn't like the idea of that however, as she used Psychic once more to stop them dead in their tracks, before heading over to them and hitting them on the back of their heads, knocking the both of them out cold.

"_Gotta love Dizzy punch._" She said with a triumphant smile.

"Impressive, they couldn't get a single hit down." I complimented her.

"_Well, they were obviously not trained or raised well._" She replied back.

"Contrary to your vast amount of battle experience from sitting at home all day every day." I teased her.

"_Ha ha. Aren't you the comedian._" She said whilst rolling her eyes.

"I have my moments." I replied with a grin. "Now, let's get moving. These cages won't open up themselves."

We both started searching for a way to open up the cages so we could let those poor Pokémon out of the cramped spaces.

"There must be a switch around here somewhere that will open those cages up, so keep your eyes open."

Soon after, a beep sounded and the cages opened up automatically. "_Found it_!" I heard Strela yell over with a cheer as the Pokémon started jumping out of the cages, glad that they were finally free.

"I can't believe the Rockets still haven't noticed my absence and escape." I said with a smirk as I returned back to Strela.

"_The Rocke_-? " Strela tried to ask before being cut off by a loud alarm that started going off and a voice speaking through some speakers on one of the walls.

"Warning! Security breach detected! This is not a drill!" The voice exclaimed.

"_Good job at jinxing us, boss._" Strela said with a frown on her muzzle.

"Arceusdammit. Nothing is ever simple, is it?" I said with a weary sigh.

The Pokémon, enjoying their newly found freedom, were already running out of the room trying to get out of the facility. I went over to the table and picked up my stuff, before leaving the room and locking the door behind me so those two Rockets couldn't escape.

"We need to find the exit, quickly." I said whilst looking down at the corridor we were in.

"_Let's get moving then._" Strela chimed in.

We made our way through the facility and saw how many of the newly freed Pokémon were attacking all Rockets in sight. Several small fires had started growing because of all the fighting while the alarm was still beeping loudly. It was complete and utter chaos.

"K_eep moving, boss_." Strela pressed.

"Right! that way!" I yelled while pointing at one of the doors that looked like it'd lead us to somewhere important. "T_he exit, hopefully." _I thought while legging it.

We were running through yet another corridor as all of the sudden a door from the left side, just a few meters in front of us, opened up and Clyde stepped out of it.

"Mr. Hale, how annoying." He said, again without any trace of emotion.

"_Uh-oh, here comes trouble_."

And trouble came indeed as Clyde reached for his two Pokéballs and sent out the Pokémon inside them. A Nidorana and Nidorino materialized in front of us, both taking on intimidating battle positions.

"Surrender and perhaps you shall be spared." Clyde said while giving an evil glare.

"_I can take them boss, this wont be problem._" Strela said while glancing over at me.

"Yeah, I'm more of the 'kick-your-ass-and-get-away-with-it' kinda guy anyway." I said with a chuckle.

"Very well Mr. Hale, You leave me no choice. Rhino, Rhina, take care of this nitwit."

Both Pokémon complied and charged in using a double Take down, which Strela tried to dodge in the same way she dodged the Golbat's attack earlier on. This time however, the two rabbit like Pokémon were faster then she was and managed to hit her, sending her flying back, skidding over the floor.

"_Oh, it's on now_." Strela said with some anger in her telepathic voice.

"Looks like you could use a hand though." I said while reaching for Skunker's Pokéball. "Skunker, stand-by for battle!" I yelled out while throwing the Pokéball. Skunker came out and looked around him trying to figure out where the heck he was. I then saw the two Nido's charging in again, both heading towards Skunker.

"_Oh no you don't_!" Strela said as her eyes lit up blue again, tilting the two unfortunate Pokémon into the air and smashing them into the wall.

"_How do you like them apples_?" she said with a smirk on her muzzle.

Then, all of the sudden it happened. Strela was hit hard by a Dark pulse which came from behind her. She screamed out in pain as she turned around to see Skunker standing behind her, with a grin on his muzzle.

"_What. The. Heck?_" She yelled out. "_You get shits and giggles from attacking your own friends or something?_"

"Skunker! Watch it dammit!" I exclaimed, wondering if it had been intentional or not.

I got my answer fairly quickly as he suddenly shot out and jabbed Strela using a shadow claw, causing her to yell out in pain once again.

Skunker started walking towards Clyde now, who had a wide grin on his mouth. "You see, Mr. Hale, Rocket Pokémon will never turn against their true master."

I muttered some curses while making my way over to Strela, who didn't seem to be in a good shape, but halted as I suddenly heard a gunshot go off. I turned to face Clyde once more and noticed he had the pistol aimed at me. I ran my hand across my torso and felt a small hole over where my stomach should be. I heard a telepathic yell from Strela calling out my name. Suddenly, my legs felt weak, and I fell to my knees. I started to cough up blood onto my hand as I covered my mouth and fell down all the way onto the ground, lying in a pool of my own blood. I saw how Strela carefully approached me as she was stunned upon seeing the blood I had lost.

"Strela…" I said weakly whilst trying to look over at her. Her eyes were watery. She had used recover to gain back some of her health and heal some of her wounds. "_I wish I knew how to use recover._" I thought sullen with a sullen face. Strela let out some sobs as she glanced over at my injury.

"_I'm sorry but I don't think I'll-_" I started. She completely lost it upon hearing these words and fell onto my chest crying loudly. I felt how I started tearing up as well, but fought the urge to cry.

"_Don't say that Nick! Just hang in there, please!" _She exclaimed trying to fight back more tears.

She actually used my first name that time, something which had never happened before as she always called me _Boss, _to mock me. Before I could say anything back, I coughed up blood once again, covering her slightly in it. The warm liquid made her flinch as she sat back up quickly and looked at what was covering her.

I could hear Clyde cackling at this "You should've gone for option one, Hale. Doesn't matter anymore now that your bleeding to death though." He said.

"_Oh no, oh no, oh no_!" Strela said while shaking her head still in complete disbelief.

I tried to calm her down, but didn't have to strength to even try and comfort her. "Farewell, Strela…" I said as my vision started to fade away completely now.

I still remember Strela sobbing loudly before everything went dark around me.

* * *

I don't know how much time passed, or if time had just stopped, but I suddenly found myself to be awake once more, in the same dark unknown space as I had found myself before in when I was sedated.

I checked my body and winced as I saw that I was still covered in blood and that a small pool of blood was forming bellow me, onto the black floor.

_Try not to slip on your own blood, you already got yourself injured enough for today._

The voice was back too, great. "I know I'm going to regret asking you this, but what's going on?"

_You got yourself killed, that's what's going on Hale._

"Yeah, I noticed. So is this the underworld or something?"

I could hear the voice let out a chuckle at me asking that.

_If this were the underworld then you wouldn't be blessed with my awesome presence._

I rolled my eyes at that. "Being locked up with you in a vast world of darkness for eternity kind of does sound like the underworld to me."

_And yet it isn't._

"Alright, so what am I doing here then? The fact that I'm bleeding out and not feeling anything is making me feel uncomfortable."

_Don't worry Hale, this'll all be over soon. I'm going to help you._

"Help me? How?"

_Just you wait, you'll see._

And with that, I felt that I was going unconscious again.

* * *

I felt like I was laying in fetal position somewhere on the ground. My head really hurt badly and felt sore. I opened my eyes and gasped. I was in the middle of a forest, only this forest had huge trees and… well, huge everything! I lifted my head up and winced when I felt something stinging in my back. I turned my head to look what had stung me and gasped once again as I saw that my arms were covered in light-yellow fur.

"_Wha_… _what in the…_" I thought to myself when I spotted a tail coming out from my bottom. I used my paws to reach for my head and felt two large and pointy ears sticking out. My arms were really short, and so were my legs. I tried standing up but I just couldn't do it as I instantly fell down due to the small size of my legs.

"_Wait a minute…_" I thought once again "_I… I shrunk_? _The trees are normal but I'm just a lot smaller_?"

I sighed. I had shrunk a lot, had paws, light-yellow fur, big pointy ears and a tail. Which could've only meant one thing.

"I'm… I'm a Pokémon?" I muttered out, not even realizing I was actually using Pokéspeak instead of the regular human language.

Trying not to panic at the absurd situation I found myself in, I looked around and it seemed like I was in the middle of nowhere, deep in this forest.

"Well, fuck."

* * *

**That's the end of that. You guys haven't given me any reviews though, which makes me a sad panda. So please, for the sake of my writing skills, go ahead and review.**

**Cheers**


	3. Chapter 2b

Pokémon is copyright to Nintendo and Gamefreak. I do not own Pokémon.

**Alright guys, this is NOT chapter 3. I already started on that one yesterday but couldn't access my computer at all today. So I just decided to do a different version from Chapter 2, one from Strela's POV. There was already a part in the 2nd chapter that was from her POV but I decided to elaborate on that, so I'll just remove it from there and put it in this version.**

**Oh and review please! There are plenty of people reading but none are actually reviewing. **

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Chapter 2b

**(Strela's POV)**

_**One month before**__** the events of Chapter 1, somewhere in Viridian city...**_

I found myself being stuck once again. Stuck in a vast world of… nothingness, really. "_This… This has happened before._" I thought to myself, before being startled by what sounded like liquid dropping down on the ground. It didn't take me long to realize that the liquid was in fact dropping onto my head, as it started running down by it. It was a red and sticky. Really disgusting actually. I wanted to move away but couldn't as it felt like I was being held in place by some unknown force. There was a pool of the liquid starting to form below me as it kept dropping on my head. It was driving me completely crazy as my head was starting to hurt from the constant dripping. The liquid just kept coming and I couldn't get away from it as I was still immobilized. I was starting to panic and wanted to scream but found myself unable to.

Fortunately, I woke up after this. I let out a quiet yelp as I looked around the room still panicking at what had happened just before. Then let out a loud sigh as I realized it had just been another damn nightmare.

"For the love of Arceus." I muttered, still breathing heavily. "These dreams are really getting annoying."

I looked around the room once more and saw that Nick was nowhere to be seen, which probably meant that he had already gone downstairs and started working again. Skunker, on the other hand, was still fast asleep and snoring loudly. "_Lazy bastard._" I thought to myself. Skunker always slept fast and for long periods of time. In fact, in the month that he had been living with us, he was always the last one to wake up. And if he were to wake up early for once, he would always stay on his quilt as he was too lazy to get up.

I decided to get up and headed for the kitchen to see what Nick was up to. I didn't have to wait too long for the answer to that question as I heard him taking a shower as I passed by the bathroom.

"_Whoa, he must have woken up pretty late today._" I thought to myself. It was unusual for him to get up this late, but I suspected that all the work he had been doing the last few weeks may have taken their toll at last.

I entered the kitchen and went to sit onto the beanbag that Nick had put there for me. I loved beanbags, they were so comfy and fun to sit on. This is why I asked Nick to get one for ourselves, as the one I used to sit on belonged to a friend of Nick's and was still over at the old apartment we used to share with him. I sat there enjoying the comfort for another 10 minutes or so before Nick stepped into the kitchen. I glanced over to him and gave him a nod to greet him.

"Mornin', Strela." he said with a smile as he nodded back at me.

I used telepathy to answer as I couldn't speak humespeak and asked him if he had had a goodnight's sleep.

"Slept like a rock. You?"

"_I've had better nights, had some bad dreams._" I said while thinking back at that nightmare I had had.

"Again? That's been happening a lot since we moved here." He said with a concerned look.

"_Yes, it's getting a tad bit annoying actually, having these frightening dreams almost every night. Hard to get properly rested this way._" I said while giving out a sigh. It was the truth; it was really hard to get some decent resting done while being constantly awoken by these nightmares.

"It might help if you told me what those dreams are about, you know." He said, trying to press onto the subject.

"_Nah, dreams are unimportant anyways, it's probably just the change of environments that's causing them._" I retorted with a shrug. I really didn't feel like elaborating onto my nightmares so I decided to start talking about something else. "_Now where the heck is that Skuntank? He's __**still**__ sleeping?_"

He seemingly decided to drop the subject and started walking over to the fridge. "Guess so, you know how much he values his rest. We can already get ourselves some breakfast though." he said, while taking out some food.

I smiled at this, glad that he decided to stop trying to get any more answers out of me. "_Good_ _idea, I'm starving._"

Whilst eating breakfast, we were joined by a certain Skuntank who finally decided to get up. (Presumably because he had smelled the food that had been taken out of the fridge. Food is one of the few things for which Skunker will get up from his quilt.)

"Morning, gorgeous." He said with a smirk on his muzzle.

I rolled my eyes at hearing this. He would always call my gorgeous, mostly to piss me off but also because he was a complete dick who called **everyone **by nicknames. (Gorgeous for me, Slave for Nick and, if I recall correctly, postie for the postman.) I scowled at him and spoke up. "First of all, yes I am gorgeous. Heck, anything looks better compared to you. Secondly, is this some kind of a competition where you get out of bed as late as you can? Seriously, you seem to sleep longer and deeper for every day that passes by."

He kept that smirk up, even while talking. "You know it!" he exclaimed, before the smirk became even wider. "Oh and by the way, you're even cuter when you get angry."

"I hate you, Skunker" I said with a sigh.

"Well, I still like you, gorgeous." He said before turning his back on me and started eating.

I simply glared at him after that till I heard Nick let out a chuckle, I turned to look at him and used telepathy to see what he thought that was so funny.

"_Typical for Skunker to just not give a shit about anything and mind his own business._" He thought loud enough for me to pick it up.

"_Maybe you shouldn't have accepted him in, boss._" I said, using telepathy once more.

Nick scowled at this, he didn't like it when I read his mind. That plus the fact I called him _boss_. I had been calling him _boss_ since the early days, when we were both kits. He didn't really like it, as he thought that it sounded like he was my master or something. So I just kept calling him that way. Partially to mock him, but also because of force of habit.

"_Not my fault you think out loud._" I said with a wide grin.

He simply rolled his eyes at this and left the kitchen, heading for his work desk.

I finished my meal and looked over to the desk where Nick was busy working on…. Whatever it was he was working on, something with evolutions if I recalled correctly, a.k.a. something very very boring. I looked around for something interesting I could do but could only spot that lazy Skuntank, still eating like his life depended on it. I let out a sigh and headed for one of the kitchen windows and looked outside, seeing the skyline of Viridian City. It wasn't as big as Hiun City, where we used to live in the center of the metropolis, while right now we lived in a sub-urban part of the smaller Viridian City. Viridian forest wasn't that far away from here either, which was nice as I liked forests and the many life forms that inhabited them.

I did prefer living here as the place was bigger than the apartment we shared with a fellow student of Nick's school. "_And now I don't need to put up with that obnoxious Pikachu Nick's friend owned. That rude, arrogant, smug little twit that kept bugging me all the time._" I thought to myself before hearing a loud burp from behind me, indicating that Skunker had finished his meal. "_Good to see it got a worthy replacement though._" I thought to myself again, scowling.

* * *

**Three days later.**

Nick walked around really cheerfully that day, which probably meant that he had completed his little project with success. He walked over at me and took out my Pokéball, clicking the button and letting me get sucked into the ball. I don't know how much time I spend inside the ball as I couldn't be bothered to keep track of time, but all of the sudden I found myself to be pulled out of the ball and back into the outside world.

I looked around to see where I was and found myself to be in a room filled with cages, all of which contained Pokémon. I then glanced behind me and shook my head at the sight of Nick.

"_What did you get yourself into this time, boss_?" I asked him, using telepathy.

I heard the sound of footsteps behind me and saw two humans, a man and a woman, dressed in black approaching us, who had a surprised look on their faces upon seeing us.

"A whole lot of Miltank dung." Nick answered with a smirk.

"_That's Nick for ya, always trying to meet every bad situation with a wry smirk, some wit, and liberal use of profanity_." I thought to myself.

"Hello there!" he then said with a cheerful voice as he turned to the two humans.

"What are you doing here intruder? Explain yourself before I beat the living crap out of you!" one of them exclaimed whilst glaring at Nick.

"_How rude! I should teach them some manners._" I thought to myself, then using telepathy to speak to the two jerks. "_Greetings. The name is Strela. And I've been sent here to fuck some shit up_." I said with a smirk.

They winced at my telepathic threat and reached for their own Pokéballs, sending the Pokémon out inside them. Three of them, two purple rat things and one purple bat thing, materialized in front of me.

"Golbat, use Poison Sting!" the woman yelled out. After which the bat thing, which I now knew was called a Golbat, moved in and shot out a load purple needles from its huge mouth.

"_Ha, I'll send those right back_!" I exclaimed, while preparing myself to use psychic. The needles were put to a halt as they lit up in a blue glow, before I sent them back to the bat thing, who tried to dodge them but was too slow and got hit pretty badly.

I heard Nick shout out a warning and saw how the two purple rats were both charging in on me. I managed to put up a barrier that both Pokémon slammed into, after which they looked dazed by the blow. I saw my chance and took it, using psychic once more. This time however, I aimed at the two rats and lifted them both into the air. They tried to struggle back but were knocked unconscious when I smashed them against one of the cages.

The bat thing proved to be more annoying then I thought as it was back into play, this time using its Air Cutter to attack. I easily dodged them by jumping up into the air, after which I put my hands together and started to focus my energy to them. A silver colored ball was starting to form and just before it reached it's maximum size I yelled "_Eat this! Flash cannon!_" I fired the beam at the bat and he was hit straight on, the force of the attack smashing it into the wall behind it this time knocking him out cold.

"That takes care of that." I heard Nick say.

I didn't turn around to look at him as I was too busy glaring at the two, now scared looking, humans. They returned their Pokémon and started making a run for it, something I couldn't allow. I used another Psychic to stop them from running and leaped forward smashing a double Dizzy punch simultaneously into the back of their heads, knocking both of them unconscious.

"_Gotta love Dizzy punch._" I said after turning back to Nick.

"Impressive, they couldn't get a single hit down." He praised me.

"_Well, they were obviously not trained or raised well._" I countered in all my humbleness.

"Contrary to your vast amount of battle experience from sitting at home all day every day." He teased with a grin.

"_Ha ha. Aren't you the comedian._" I said whilst rolling my eyes.

"I have my moments." he replied with a grin. "Now, let's get moving. These cages won't open up themselves."

We started searching for a way to open up the cages so we could release these poor bastards, when Nick spoke up again. "There must be a switch around here somewhere that will open those cages up, so keep your eyes open."

It didn't take me long to find the switch and pulled it after which a beep sounded and the cages opened up. "_Found it_!" I yelled as the Pokémon were getting out their cages.

"I can't believe the Rockets still haven't noticed my absence and escape."

"_The Rocke_-? " I tried to ask before being cut off by an alarm that went off and an obnoxiously loud voice started speaking through some speakers on one of the walls.

"Warning! Security breach detected! This is not a drill!" it exclaimed.

"_Good job at jinxing us, boss._" I said while frowning at him.

"Arceusdammit. Nothing is ever simple, is it?" Nick said with a weary sigh.

The Pokémon, enjoying their newly found freedom, were already running out of the room presumably trying to get out of this place, which seemed like a good idea. Nick went over to the table and picked up his coat and hat, before leaving the room with me following behind him.

"We need to find the exit, quickly."

"_Let's get moving then._" I chimed in. I still wasn't too sure of what exactly was going on, but we were in some deep trouble. That was for sure.

We made our way through the facility and saw how many of the newly freed Pokémon were attacking more of the same black clothed humans. The alarm was still going and there were some small fires going on which probably came from all the fighting.

"K_eep moving, boss_." I pressed, as I saw Nick waver at the sight of this.

"Right! That way!" He shouted while pointing at one of the many doors in this complex.

We were running through a hallway as a door from the left side was suddenly opened up and a man stepped out.

"Mr. Hale, how annoying." He said, with a cold and emotionless voice.

"_Uh-oh, here comes trouble_." I said, being a bit scared of the lack of emotion in the man's voice.

The man reached for two Pokéballs on his belt and sent out the Pokémon inside them. Two rabbit-like Pokémon who looked strikingly similar to each other materialized in front of us, both trying taking on intimidating battle positions. (I was totally not impressed by them by the way. I knew I could take them out with ease)

"Surrender and perhaps you shall be spared." The man said while glaring at us.

"_I can take them boss, this wont be problem._" I said while glancing over at Nick.

"Yeah, I'm more of the 'kick-your-ass-and-get-away-with-it' kinda guy anyway." He said with a chuckle.

"Very well Mr. Hale, You leave me no choice. Rhino, Rhina, take care of this nitwit."

Both Pokémon followed this rude order and started charging at me in a similar way the two purple rat things had done. I knew these two things were too powerful for me to stop with a barrier so instead I just jumped up to dodge them. They were faster than expected however as they reached me before I could jump up and slammed into me with full force, sending me flying backwards into the floor.

"_Oh, it's on now_." I said, starting to get pissed off.

"Looks like you could use a hand though." Nick said while reaching for the other Pokéball on his belt. "Skunker, stand-by for battle!" he yelled out while throwing it. Skunker came out of the ball and looked around him trying to figure out where the heck he was. I then saw the two Rabbit things charging in again, both heading towards the Skuntank.

"_Oh no you don't_!" I said as I used Psychic to lift the two bastards up and smashing them into a wall. It didn't seem like they were going to recover from that for a while.

"_How do you like them apples_?" I said with smirk.

All of the sudden I felt a sharp pain in my back and screamed out in pain. I turned around to look at the source and saw how Skunker was standing behind me with a grin on his muzzle.

"Sorry, gorgeous." He said with a snippy tone in his voice.

"_What. The. Heck?_" I yelled out, completely enraged by his attitude "_You get shits and giggles from hitting your own friends or something?_"

"Skunker! Watch it dammit!" I heard Nick shout out.

Skunker didn't pay attention to him, as he suddenly shot out and struck me with a shadow claw, causing me to yell out in agony.

He then started walking towards the other guy now, who had a wide grin on his face. "You see, Mr. Hale, Rocket Pokémon will never turn against their true master."

I had trouble trying to conscious and glared over at the Skuntank who still had that wide grin on his muzzle. "_So that bastard is on their side? That backstabbing piece of Miltank dung betrayed us_?" I thought, still enraged by the pain.

I started to concentrate all my power and started to use recover as I heard Nick run over to me. Suddenly, I was startled by the sound of a gunshot and saw the man wielding a gun which was pointed at Nick. I glanced over at him and saw how he was holding his hand on his stomach while he fell to his knees. I yelled out Nick's name as I saw him starting to cough up some blood as he fell into a pool of his own blood. I went over and carefully approached him as I saw the pool of blood he was lying in was increasing in size.

"_Strela..." _he said in a weak voice_. _I was struggling not to cry as I eyed the small wound in his stomach, blood pouring out of it._  
_

_ "I'm sorry but I don't think I'll-_" He started.

"_Don't say that Nick! Just hang in there, please!" _I yelled as I fought back more tears.

He wanted to say something more but instead started coughing up blood again, covering me slightly in it. The warm liquid made me wince as I sat up and looked myself over.

_A red, sticky liquid…_

I could hear the man behind us snickering. "You should've gone for option one, Hale. Doesn't matter anymore now that you're bleeding to death though." He mocked.

"_Oh no, oh no, oh no_!" I shouted while shaking my head violently.

Nick tried lifting his hand once again, but simply lacked the energy to do so. "Farewell Strela…" he finally said while slipping away, dropping his head gently back to the floor.

"_No Arceusdammit! Don't leave me here Nick! Nick!_" I shouted out before going silent again whilst looking at my deceased master.

"He's gone." I heard Skunker say while I was still looking at Nick's body in disbelief. "There's nothing you can do anymore, Strela"

"_No…_" I said quietly whilst turning around to face the Skuntank "No. There is something I can do. I'm going to fucking murder you. Right here, right now." I now yelled out while firing a Flash canon at the Skuntank. It nearly hit, but the Dark type was able to dodge the attack last second. He fired a Dark pulse at me, which I could have easily dodged in normal circumstances, but I was completely out of my element and it caused me to get hit hard by the attack. I was flung back into the wall and collapsed to the floor. The pain was back and the Recover wasn't helping me anymore. I just had endured too much damage, both physical and emotional, to keep on going. I was on the edge of passing out as I saw the man walk over to Nick's body and pick up my Pokéball, while Skunker was simply staring at me.

"Well at least we got something out of this mess." I heard the man say before pointing the Pokéball at me and sucking me in to it.

After this, everything just went dark.

* * *

**There, another 3600 word chapter. Took me longer than I expected, but I'm glad I did this.**

**Now please, do me a favor and review!**

**Cheers**


	4. Chapter 3

Pokémon is copyright to Nintendo and Gamefreak. I do not own Pokémon.

**Everyone rejoice! The real third chapter is here and continues from Chapter one. This one isn't as long as the 2nd chapter since that one was huge and took me way to long to complete. Sorry for the long wait by the way, but my granddad died last week and I didn't feel like writing anything. Plus the fact that I got a bit lazy this week… you get the picture, lot's of shit happened which caused delay. (I actually finished this part a few days ago, but couldn't get it up on as my internet decided to act like an arse.)**

**Prepare your bodies for lots of dialogue by the way, as there's gonna be a lot of explaining this chapter.**

**Props to Azure Butterfly for reviewing my story, if only more people would be willing to review. Whatever, I'll stop whining now.**

**One more thing! I need a b****etareader! I have no clue as to how this works as I'm new to FF but if you're interested, send me a PM (Do eet, I will worship you as a demigod for the rest of my life)**

**Enjoy.**

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Chapter 3

**(Hale's POV)**

I awoke with a loud yawn and stretched my body, which was followed by a loud crack. I looked around my clearing and noticed that Leaf wasn't around. I was hungry and was longing for some food which, because of the unsuccessful scavenging run of yesterday, I didn't have anymore. I got up and wanted to check the area for any sign of where Leaf had gone to and something small to eat when I heard someone shout out "Breakfast!" After which some rustling came from nearby bushes and Leaf came out of them mere seconds later with a smile on her muzzle.

"You fancy some food?" She asked.

"You have no idea." I replied back with a grin of my own.

Two vines appeared from out of the leaves on her head, holding tight on several apples and pears.

"Dig in then, I'd say." She said as she tossed over some of the fruits.

"You appear to be feeling a lot better." I said while taking a bite from an apple.

"Yeah, the Sitrus berry restored a lot of energy. There was a full moon last night as well, so that restored a lot of health. Oddish grow by absorbing moonlight you see,"

"…while taking out extra energy from the sunlight during the day." I added, still remembering this stuff from Pokémon biology class when I was still at school.

She seemed surprised by this. "That's right! How do you know this stuff? You must be pretty damn smart if you know all of this." She said.

"I picked up on stuff like this when I was younger." I answered.

"Younger? You're just a Pichu, you can't be **that** old." She said, tilting her head to the left.

"_Oh dear, if only you knew the truth_." I thought to myself before speaking up again "Well, I'm not your average Pichu, you see."

She squinted her eyes and grinned at this. "You're so full of secrets aren't you?"

"Interesting, isn't it?" I said, grinning back. "Enough about me though. Why don't you tell me a bit more about yourself?" I asked. She had been asking about me all this time now and hadn't talked about herself at all so far.

"Well, I suppose it's only fair I'd tell you a bit about myself." She said "I never knew my real parents and was raised by foster parents who found me when I was just an egg. My foster parents were both Bellsprout. In fact, the whole family I lived with were Bellsprout. No evolved forms, no other Pokémon, just those Bellsprout and me."

"That's quite odd, why weren't there any evolved Bellsprout, or any other Pokémon for that matter?" I asked, puzzled.

"That's because we lived in the Sprout Tower, a large man-made wooden tower located in Johto dedicated to the gentle and peaceful nature of Bellsprout. This is why I left to Kanto; the place was incredibly boring and dull. The only times there was any excitement is when a Pokémon trainer would come and challenge one of the Sages." She explained.

"Sages?" I asked, chewing on some apple and raising an eyebrow.

"Monks who study and train Bellsprout, they are the caretakers of the Sprout Tower and the Bellsprout that live within. Newer trainers often come to seek guidance from these sages and occasionally battle them as well." She informed me.

"So, you were the only non-Bellsprout there? Man, must've been weird." I said with a small grin. Just the thought of living with those weird plant things freaked me out.

"Yeah, you have no idea how awkward our family meetings were. Still, they raised me with love for which I am grateful. But I couldn't just stay there in that tower for the rest of my life; I wanted to see more of the world and live the excitement, to become stronger and not have to rely on others to take care of me." She told me flat out. "So I just decided to leave and travel to Kanto, I bade them farewell and told them I wanted to see more of the world. They were sad to see me go but understood my desire. Just before I left, my 'father' gave me a Miracle seed to help me out if I ever found myself in a dangerous situation. It was a nice gesture as that Miracle seed had been in the Sprout family for a long time. It was always held by the family leader to help out whenever trouble would arise."

"_She's certainly talk active_." I thought as I finished eating my apple and started eating one of the pears laying around. I was still listening to Leaf, who had a sad expression on her muzzle now.

"Unfortunately, I seem to have lost it somewhere. I think I may have dropped it during all of that commotion yesterday. I went to search for it this morning but didn't have any luck finding it." She said subdued.

"Tell you what, we can search for it again after breakfast. I'd be happy to help you find it. After all, it's my fault you got into trouble yesterday." I said with a warm smile.

"I thought you'd say that. Thanks Hale" She said, smiling back.

After finishing breakfast we set of into the forest once again, leaving the clearing behind us. We walked through the forest in silence for a while until I decided to speak up again.

"So, what does this Miracle seed look like? And what does it exactly do?" I asked, intrigued by the story she told me before.

"It basically looks like an ordinary seed, but it's bigger. It boosts the power of Grass-types, so it's pretty handy to have it with me." She answered.

"It boosts your power?"

"Yeah, just think back of what happened yesterday when I first shot that Bullet seed at the Beedrill that tried to kill you. Normally it would have no effect at all on a Bug/Poison type, but the Miracle seed increased the damage it dealt, causing the Beedrill to flinch and allowing you to get out of there." She said with a smirk.

"Then you must have dropped it while we were trying to get away, seeing as your Bullet seed didn't do too much damage when we were ambushed." I concluded.

"That's what I think, yeah."

It was at this point when I heard some faint yells and the sound of battling which seemed to be coming from up ahead. I glanced at Leaf, checking to see if she heard it too, but saw that she was oblivious to the sounds.

"_It's them ears that do the trick." _I thought to myself as I slowed down and turning to Leaf.

"Can't you hear that?" I asked her.

She looked at me with a puzzled look and shook her head. "What's going on?"

"I can hear some commotion coming from up ahead, not sure what it is but we should stay on our guard." I informed her.

"What do you think is going on?" She asked me.

"Sounds like a battle, not sure though."

We continued walking as I heard the noises from before grow louder and louder. I was certain there was a battle of some sorts going on and I quickened my pace.

"I can hear it too now." She muttered.

"Yeah, were definitely getting closer, keep your eyes and ears open." I said while wondering if she even had ears. I wanted to ask her about this but chose not to. Partially because I didn't want to attract any unneeded attention from whatever was up ahead, but also because I was afraid I would anger her by asking a question like that. Instead, I decided it'd be better if I just tried to remember it from Pokémon biology class.

There was no time for thinking about that however, as we soon saw the source of all the noises we had heard. We had reached another clearing in the forest and I noticed that it was the same clearing where I had tried to fetch some grub from the apple tree yesterday. I heard Leaf gasp as she looked at the scene that unfolded in front of us once we entered the clearing. There were several Pikachu fighting off a swarm of Butterfree and, what else, Beedrill.

The Chu's were using Thunderbolts to drive the bugs back but had trouble doing so because there were just so many of them annoying buggers. Two of the Chu's were laying down on the ground, hopefully just unconscious, while the remaining four others were trying to protect them by zapping any bug that came to close.

"This looks bad." Leaf whispered, just loud enough for me to hear.

"Yeah, looks like it's gonna rain soon." I said with a grin.

Leaf simply rolled her eyes at hearing this, before returning her gaze to the fight that was going on.

"It doesn't look like those bugs have spotted us yet, we should take advantage of that."

"Wait, you're actually planning on attacking those bugs? Do you like pain or something?"

"We need to help them Hale! We can't just stand and watch those Pikachu get killed. C'mon! I helped you out yesterday and I'll be damned if I don't help these Chu's today!" She exclaimed, her temper flaring up.

"We nearly got killed by just a few of those bugs, what are we going to do against a whole swarm of them? Our attacks aren't nearly effective enough to take out even one of them." I countered.

"We'll be fine Hale, I got a plan." She assured me.

"We'll be fine? We'll be dead!" I countered.

But she was already heading towards the swarm, sneaking up on them from behind.

"Oh, Arceusdammit." I muttered before following her. She seemed confident, so I guessed she must've indeed had some sort of plan.

The swarm of bugs still hadn't noticed us as they had their backs to us and were too focused on trying to get close to the Chu's, who were still shooting jolts like crazy. The bugs were counterattacking these jolts though, the Beedrill using Pin missile while the Butterfree were using Silver wind and shooting off purple colored beams coming from their compound eyes. Leaf was closing in on the swarm with me following her and wondering what the heck she was planning. They Chu's did spot us however and started using even more Thunderbolts, presumably to draw more attention to them as we drew closer and closer to the swarm. At this point, Leaf was right below the flying swarm of bugs.

"It's party time." She said with a grin on her muzzle as a big cloud of orange dust emerged from between her leaves.

My eyes widened as some of the bugs fell down on the ground motionless after coming in contact with the cloud. "_Damn, Stun Spore really is a handy attack._" I thought to myself while chuckling.

The bugs were completely surprised by the sudden appearance of the cloud and some of them didn't even get the time to fly away as they just started falling to the ground. The Pikachu saw their chance and took it, charging forward towards the remaining bugs that escaped the now fading dust cloud. They fired off large crackling bolts of electricity, probably using every last bit of electricity they had left in their bodies. I decided to join in and shot a jolt towards a Beedrill who already seemed weakened. I managed to hit it full power (Which wasn't a lot, Pichu suck at electro management.) and saw how the bug was having trouble trying to stay in the air. It recovered quickly though and shot forward, trying to use Twinneedle on me. I wanted to shoot of another Thundershock but lacked the power to do so. Just as I was about to run away, one of the Pikachu – the largest one in the group, in fact. – slammed into the bug. It wasn't an ordinary tackle however as his body was engulfed by a yellow glow, sparks flying off of it. The bug fell down to the ground, its body twitching because of the electricity that was still trapped in its body.

"And stay down." The Pikachu said with a smirk.

I wanted to thank him but he was already dashing away, heading towards some other bugs to fight.

Leaf, too, was fighting one of the bugs (A Butterfree, to be more precise). It tried hitting her using its Silver wind, but Leaf dodged it by jumping aside. She opened her mouth, trying to use Bullet seed, when instead of multiple small seeds, one large seed was fired off. The seed hit its mark right on and exploded on impact, instantly taking the bug down.

She seemed surprised herself at the sight of the attack she just managed to pull of, which was soon replaced by a grin on her muzzle while she walked over to me.

"Told you we'd be fine." She said, still bearing that grin.

"Nice trick." I replied back, ignoring her cocky remark.

"Yeah, can't believe I finally pulled off Seed bomb. I've been trying to master it for a while now, guess I perform better under pressure." She explained.

Meanwhile, all the still conscious bugs were fleeing into the forest, as the Chu's were overpowering them now. When the last bug had fled, all but one of them rushed towards the two seemingly injured, but still breathing Pikachu who were still laying flat on the ground. The largest Pikachu of the group who also helped me out before, however, started walking towards us.

"Phew, that was a close one. Thanks for the help, you two." He said while shaking paws (And vine with Leaf) with a smile.

"Those bastards came out of nowhere," He continued. "We were gathering some food when they suddenly swarmed us completely."

"Our pleasure. We saw you were in trouble so we came to help out immediately." I said with a grin.

Leaf cast a quick glare at me and for a moment it looked like she was going to attack me, but she changed her mind as she just turned to the Pikachu again.

"Are your friends going to be okay?" She asked, gesturing at the downed Chu's.

"Oh yeah, they got hit by some Sleep powder, nothing serious." He said with a shrug. "Well, I think it'd be better if we got out of here now, we should head back to our clan grounds where it's safe."

"_Oh man, these Pikachu are from the Chu clan I've ran into before_." I thought to myself.

"Hey why don't you guys come along? I'm sure the Elders will allow you to stay and eat something." The Pikachu suggested.

"_Oh great_." I thought to myself again. I wanted to decline the invite but Leaf was faster to talk.

"Alright, that's not a bad idea. Battling makes me hungry, right Hale?" She said while looking over at me.

"Uh yeah, sounds like fun." I replied.

"Alright that's settled then." The Pikachu said with a smile on his muzzle. "The name is Pyre, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Leaf and this is Hale" Leaf replied.

"Pleasure." He said with a nod.

"Now, let's get a move on." He continued. "These bugs won't stay down forever."

The two previously sleeping Pikachu were awake again and could fortunately walk on their own again. Our group was led by Pyre who was walking in the front, guiding us to the clan grounds. The other Pikachu were following right behind him while Leaf and I were walking at the rear of the group. For the first time in a while, I could actually take some time to admire the lush forest as I didn't have to worry about listening and looking for nearby predators. It was mid spring and the forest had already came back to life completely, contrary to the early days of me being a Pokémon, when spring was just setting in and food was hard to come by. Not exactly the best time of my life, let me tell you that. Even though it had only been 6 weeks or so since the transformation, it all felt like it happened a long time ago. Almost seemed like a different life…

I was snapped back to reality as I suddenly realized I had been falling behind on the group, so I picked up the pace. Leaf was walking in front now, next to Pyre, and the two of them seemed to be having a conversation.

"Finally back to earth?" She asked me as I walked over to them and decided to join in.

"Huh?" I muttered.

"You seemed to be deep in thoughts, didn't even reply back when I asked you something." She explained.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry for that, I was pondering about something. Nothing important." I replied with a sheepish smirk.

"Whatever." She said, before turning back to Pyre "So Pyre, as you were saying?"

"It's those bugs, there's something going on with them. Beedrill are known to be territorial, but this isn't normal anymore. They just attack anything on sight." Pyre said.

"Yeah, even the Butterfree are abnormally aggressive." Another Pikachu chimed in.

"The thing is, this aggressive behavior only started recently." Pyre continued. "For some reason Caterpie, Metapod, Weedle and Kakuna having been evolving extremely quickly. I mean, bug types already tend to evolve fairly quickly, but not this fast. A Weedle will evolve into a Kakuna and then into a Beedrill in a matter of hours, a process which should normally take weeks."

"A fastened evolution progress would explain their abnormal aggressiveness." I suddenly stated.

Both shot me a puzzled look, not following my chain of thoughts.

"Alright, I'll be the one to ask." Leaf said with a sigh after a few moments of silence. "What do you mean Hale?"

"Well, if those bugs indeed evolve this quickly, it could lead to overpopulation, overpopulation means that they need more food and thus need to increase the size of their food gathering territory." I explained. "Plus the fact that speeding up the evolution process could lead to emotional instability as the young bugs don't have time to fully develop their bodies in such short amount of time."

Leaf just stared at me before shaking her head in disbelief. "How do you even know this stuff?"

"I don't know for certain, it's just a guess." I said with a grin.

"Well, even though it sounds plausible, there is a flaw in your theory." Pyre noted.

"Care to elaborate on your remark?" I asked, trying to sound even more snobbish to annoy Leaf.

"Why would Butterfree and Beedrill work together if they've gotten more territorial? If anything, they should be fighting each other as they currently make up the two largest populations in this forest and thus both need the most food." He explained.

He did have a point there, it just didn't add up. Leaf didn't get the point though, as right now she was looking more confused than ever.

"I'm not even going to bother trying to understand anymore." She said, letting out another sigh.

Pyre laughed at her confusion. "Don't worry about it, we're getting close to the clan grounds now anyway." He said.

We soon arrived at a large clearing with a small stream streaming through it. There were Chu's all over the place. Most of them were Pikachu. There were several Pichu as well, all accompanied by their parents who were keeping a watchful eye on them. There were a couple of Raichu as well, one of them approached us when he spotted us, I recognized him as the Elder I had a run-in with before.

"Well Pyre, I see you've brought some friends with you today." He said as he glanced over at us.

"We had some trouble with those damned bugs again and these two helped us out, sir." Pyre explained.

"Is that so?" The elder asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes sir. In fact, I daresay that without their interference, we could have been in some serious trouble."

"Well thank you for the help then." The elder said, bowing slightly.

"It was nothing, really, I think it's only normal that we helped out." Leaf said solemnly.

"If there is anything we can do to return the favor, then please do ask." The elder said.

"Actually, there is something." Leaf said with a smile. "You see, I lost something around these parts that was of great value to me – My miracle seed."

"Aha, I see. You require our help in retrieving it?"

"I would greatly appreciate it, it means a lot to me so I need to get it back."

"I'd be glad to help you find it back." Pyre said. "We can send some search parties out to help us find it."

"Sounds good, thanks." Leaf said. "You coming along Hale?"

"Nah," I said as I shrugged. "I have different plans."

"Different plans? What kind of plans?" Leaf asked.

"You'll see when you get back." I said with a sly grin

"Fine then, I'll see you later." She said while turning around and walking off with Pyre.

"I, too, have a request to make, elder" I said whilst turning back to the elder.

"Please, go ahead." He said with a smile.

"My battling skills are off; my attacks are too weak and inaccurate to be of any good use. I'd like to change that." I said with a grin. "And I need your help to do so."

The elder had accepted my request and was willing to help me get stronger. We headed for a different clearing where we could exercise privately and for hours straight, he trained my battling skills and abilities. We worked on managing my energy better so that I could actually shoot out several Thundershocks without getting exhausted. We also worked on my aim, making me able to actually hit targets, even from far away. He taught me how to use my agility and speed for both offense and defense and started teaching me a new move that I had been wanting to learn for a while now.

The sun was already setting when we decided to call it a day and head back to the main clearing. Leaf had already returned from her search which turned out to be successful. She had found back her Miracle seed with the help of Pyre and was relieved to have it back where it belonged. We decided to stay with the clan for the night and had dinner together with them, after which we went to sleep as we were both tired from the events that had occurred that day.

The next morning we awoke pretty early and decided to head back home, bidding our goodbye's to the clan.

"Again, thanks Pyre, for helping me get back my Miracle seed." Leaf said while using her vines to shake paws with Pyre. "And thank you too sir, for your hospitality." She added, turning to the elder.

"Yeah, we really appreciate your kindness and help." I chimed in.

"Our pleasure, it's the least we could do in return for your help yesterday." Pyre said.

"Are you certain you want to leave us? You're welcome to stay longer if you wish so." The elder said.

"Thanks for the offer, but I'd rather return back home." I declined.

"Very well, have a safe trip, demon." The elder said with a grin.

I chortled at hearing this while Pyre and Leaf just gave the both of us a puzzled look.

"I was wondering when you were going to bring that up." I said with a grin, after which I turned back to Leaf. "Now, we should get going."

We both turned around and headed towards the forest again, away from the clearing and leaving the Chu clan behind us.

"Demon?" Leaf asked whilst raising her eyebrow.

"Yeah. Don't worry about it, boring story." I replied.

"Whatever." She said with a sigh. "So, what were you up to yesterday anyway?"

"Meee? I have no idea what you're talking about." I said while giving her the most innocent look I could muster.

"Oh Arceus Hale, cut the crap." She snapped.

"It's a surprise, have some patience." I said whilst snickering.

"Bastard." She grumbled.

And so we set of back towards my clearing, it was going to be a long walk from all the way up the northern part of Viridian Forest. We walked on a – presumably human made - dirt path, heading south, towards home. Leaf was talking about the search for her Miracle seed but I was barely keeping attention to her story. We had walked for about an hour (We stopped walking on the path out of fear for Pokémon trainers and had started walking through the bushes alongside the path to prevent being spotted) when I heard a familiar sound. Leaf was once again oblivious to the sound, showing the superior hearing of the Pichu line once more. I had no time to ponder about this though, as the source of the sound soon revealed itself. Another damn swarm of those cursed bugs, coming from the bushes all around us. The swarm consisted of around 20ish bugs, both Beedrill and Butterfree, and they all looked very, **very** pissed. A-fucking-gain.

"Déjà-vu…" I muttered while Leaf and I moved back to back as the bugs surrounded us.

"What?" Leaf exclaimed.

"You think we can reason with them?" I asked with a wry smirk.

I kid you not, the moment I said that, several of the Beedrill charged in to attack us while the rest kept their distance… for now. We both reacted quickly, Leaf shot of a seed bomb while I used a Thundershock. My attack actually hit a Beedrill, but Leaf's attack missed its mark as the slow Seed bomb was easier to dodge than the faster Thundershock. Instead, the large seed smashed into a tree and exploded with a loud bang. Even though my Thundershock hit the Beedrill, it didn't seem like it suffered too much from it as it just moved in to attack. Drat, looks like I could still use some more training.

"Doubt it." Leaf said.

We both had our chance, so now it was the Beedrill's turn as they charged in with their Twinneedle's. I could barely dodge the first one, managing to jump aside just in time, while the second one was actually slowed down due to the first Beedrill being in it's way and giving me time to shoot out another Thundershock. It hit its mark once more and I could hear the bug scream out in agony, but again to no avail as the bug just shrugged it off.

Leaf had actually managed to hit to first Beedrill that came in with a volley of Bullet seeds, knocking the bug back a bit. She didn't see that there was another one charging in from behind her however, but luckily it didn't seem like it was the brightest bug in the family as it aimed for the leafs on top of her head. He actually hit several of her leaves and caused Leaf to let out a yelp of pain, which was soon replaced by an evil glare at the bug.

"You're making me angry, you won't like me when I'm angry." She said with a voice shivering with a mixture of pain and anger.

I blinked at hearing what she said as I had the feeling that I had heard that quote before. I couldn't ponder about it however as my thoughts were interrupted by Leaf shooting out her vines and smacking them both against the Beedrill, stunning it. She then grabbed it and started smashing it into the ground repeatedly. I was caught of guard by this sudden display of rage by her but decided to switch my focus back to the battle. Good thing I did, because several other bugs had decided to join in while our assailants from earlier took a rest. "_Cheap_ _bastards." _I thought to myself while scowling at the bugs.

The Butterfree were now starting to use Silver wind on me, which I had a really hard time dodging. One of the Beedrill flanked me and used Pin missile, which I could only barely dodge. This did cause me to loose my momentum however and I was hit by one of the Silver winds. And boy, did it hurt. I got knocked back to the ground and for a few seconds, my sight was really blurry. I could still make out Leaf fighting fiercely. She had apparently finished off the previous Beedrill as it was nowhere to be seen, and was now fighting against - well what did you expect – more Beedrill. She was using her vines to try and keep them out of range while constantly using Bullet seed.

I could see that she was getting tired real quickly and knew that she wasn't going to make it by herself. I had to get back up and fight, I just **had** to. So I used every bit of strength in my body getting myself up and facing the bugs once more. They didn't seem too impressed by my determination however as they just prepared themselves for another attack run. I decided to do the same and started gathering every last jolt of electricity I had. As I was charging up however, something happened. I twitched as my stomach began to feel odd. My vision blurred once again, and weird chills surged through my spine? The odd sensation spread from my stomach and throughout the rest my body, and my vision went from blurring to brightening. Eventually, a bright white light came engulfed everything...and then, as soon as it all started, both the sensation and the light began to fade. I blinked repeatedly until the light had totally faded away, my were eyes still kind of sore from the sudden bright light though. I felt re-energized, like I had just tapped into a new source of energy and strength.

I looked back at the bugs and this time it seemed like they were impressed, surprised even, though I wasn't sure why.

"H… Hale?" I heard Leaf stammer.

"What? What is it?" I asked, completely clueless of what had just happened.

"Erm, you… uhhh, you kind of evolved." She replied.

I gasped and looked myself over. Holy shit she was right, I had evolved into a Pikachu. My fur now had a slightly darker shade of yellow, my arms and legs had grown larger, my ears had changed form and colour and my tail was way longer and was now coloured yellow as well.

"Cool." I said with a grin.

Leaf opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by a purple coloured beam which hit her straight on. It seemed like it had some serious effect on her as she instantly fell over on the ground unconscious.

I looked over at where the attack had came from and saw how a Butterfree was snickering at his accomplishment of taking down Leaf.

"Thanks for ruining the moment, dickbag!" I shouted as I shot off a Thundershock towards it.

The Thundershock was a lot bigger and seemed way more powerful than the ones I used when I was a Pichu, it moved a lot faster too and took the bug down instantly without giving it even a chance of dodging the attack.

"_Whoa, evolving is awesome_!" I thought to myself before turning back to the rest of the bugs with a smirk.

"Now, where were we?" I asked, still bearing that smirk.

I shoot out several jolts towards the group and most of them actually hit their mark. Several of the bugs were now screaming in pain as the Thunderbolt (?) had hit them straight on.

"Ha ha haaa! I'm starting to get good at this!" I yelled out, surprised by my newly acquired powers.

My joy was short-lived however as I suddenly felt sleepy for some unknown reason. I let out a loud yawn as I wondered what the hell was going on when I suddenly spotted a Butterfree hovering above me. What was more worrying than that, however, was the blue coloured spore coming from its wings and descending upon me.

"Awww shit, Sleep powder. You slick bast-" Is all I could say before I dropped on the ground sleeping.

I 'woke' up and found myself in an all too familiar dark space, one that I hadn't visited in a while.

_Ohhh dang, you got put down like a bitch._

"Arceusdammit_,_ I am so not in the mood for you right now." I said with a sigh.

_Awww, you're no fun._

"Deal with it."

_Jerk. Don't forget I saved your live. More than once too._

"Ahh yes, the voice in my head that resurrected me and then transformed me into a Pichu. Good times, good times." I said with a sarcastic tone.

_Hey! You're not a Pichu anymore, you're a Pikachu, rejoice!_

"I'd rather be human, thank you very much."

_Oh Mr. Grumpypants, why are you always so grumpy._

"Because I just found myself into yet another life threatening situation while you are going around in my head acting like a child. Furthermore, I'll probably get killed - and so will Leaf -as we are both unable to battle those bugs right now."

_Don't worry Mr. Grumpypants, there will be help coming for you, I won't let you die that easily._

"Stop calling me Grumpypants, it's annoying."

_Alright then Cranky Hanky, you really need to look after yourself more, you're getting yourself into a lot of trouble and your real adventure hasn't even started yet._

"I hate you_."_

_Don't worry, you don't actually mean that__._

**Alright, that's all folks. Please leave me a review so I know what to change and whatnot. And don't worry, the next chapter won't take as long for me to finish. I'll probably have it out by the end of the week and it'll most likely be about the same size as this one, not sure though.**

**Cheers**


	5. Chapter 4

Pokémon is copyright to Nintendo and Gamefreak. I do not own Pokémon.

**Update tiem! Chapter 4 has arrived! And it's from Leaf's POV! This one isn't as long as the last two chapters (3000 words) but introduces one of my favorite characters. Not a damn clue what else to include here, so I'm just gonna cut it short.**

**Oh and by the way, screw chapter titles.**

**EDIT: I still need that betareader so please, if anyone is up for it, send me an IM.**

**Enjoy!**

Chapter 4

**(Leaf's POV)**

I blinked my eyes as they adjusted to the light that shone in my eyes when I woke up. With a lot of effort, I managed to get up to my paws and felt how the underground I was standing on felt quite soft, warm even. I blinked my eyes several more times, trying to clear my sight and check out my surroundings and gasped as I found myself to be in a large cubic shaped… room? I was standing on a bed, a human made bed with blankets and a cushion. Almost everything in the room was painted in light colors, mostly white. I noticed there were three other beds in the room and several light bulbs on the ceiling that gave off, what else, light. I searched for any exits in the room and spotted a door, which was closed, and a gaping hole in one of the walls. I wasn't fooled by the seemingly possible escape route however, as I was well aware of the barriers those things had to keep anything from entering or leaving through them.

"Oh crap, where the heck am I?" I muttered.

It was at this point I realized that Hale was sleeping in the bed next to mine, and had buried himself in the quilt that was lying on top of the bed to keep himself warm. I needed to wake him up so I did what everyone else would have done in this situation; I picked him up using my vines and started shaking him violently while shouting out his name. (Admit it, you would have totally done this yourself if you had extendable vines.) My technique proved to be effective as Hale awoke with a yelp of surprise as I dragged him onto my bed.

"What the hell? What's going on? Where are we?" He exclaimed whilst looking around with bewildered eyes.

"You tell me, I just woke up here myself. Seems like were in some kind of a human made room." I informed him.

"Ugh, it's… it's a hospital, I think." He muttered while rubbing his forehead.

"A hospital? Those places where they treat ill people and Pokémon you mean? How would you know?" I asked.

"Almost everything in this room is coloured white."

"So?" I asked, completely clueless.

Hale chuckled at this. "All the furniture in hospitals tends to be coloured white. Don't ask me why, that's just the way it is." He explained with a grin.

He let out a loud yawn and stretched his body. "That, plus the fact that that sign on the wall says 'Pewter city Pokémon center'." He said while pointing at a plaque that hung next to the door.

I looked over and saw a light blue sign with human inscriptions on it. I frowned and looked back at Hale.

"You can read that? You can read Human?" I asked.

He seemed startled for a second but recovered quickly. "Uhhh, yeah! Another thing I picked up over the years."

"Over the years?" I asked whilst raising my left eyebrow. There was really something off with that guy, he knew so much stuff despite him only having evolved recently into a Pikachu. I knew for a fact that Pichu's tend to be very young and infant like, something Hale certainly wasn't.

"Oh, as I said before, I'm not your average Pich- …Pikachu." He replied back with a smirk.

"Yeah, about that. What exactly happened to us? The last thing I can remember is you evolving into a Pikachu, then everything went black." I asked.

"One of the Butterfree's fired off this purple beam that hit you right on, knocking you out cold." He informed me.

I scowled as I now remembered what had happened. That sneaky Butterfree had attacked me when I lowered my guard after Hale's evolution, what a dickmove.

Hale grinned at seeing my scowl. "Don't worry, I took him out for ya. Bastard didn't stand a chance against my improved electric powers."

Good, that dipshit deserved nothing less than being fried. Probably was super effective too, serves him right.

"One of his buddies sedated me with Sleep powder though. Just as I was going house on those fuckers too. What a pity." He added while grinning sheepishly.

Alright, so we were both knocked out by the bugs. That still didn't explain how we got here in this… hospital. Just as I was about to ask Hale's take on this, the door swung open and a Human carrying a plate walked into the room. She was female, that's for sure, and wore a white outfit. She had pink coloured hair and wore small white hat with a red cross on it.

"Oh, I thought I heard something." She said with a warm smile. "It's good to see that you're awake, your trainer will be relieved. I'll go inform him right away."

Hale and I gawped at her as she turned around and left the room.

"Trainer? **Our** Trainer?" I asked, completely clueless.

"Not a clue." Hale answered while shaking his head in disbelief.

Just mere seconds later the woman returned, with a man following her in her tracks. He had short brown hair and wore a red shirt with dark blue pants. I wasn't sure how old he was as I wasn't too good at guessing human ages, but he seemed to be around the twenties. There was a Quilava riding along on his shoulder with a grin on his muzzle.

"As I thought, they appear to be completely healthy. The long rest and medication did a lot of good." The woman said.

"That's great, thanks nurse Joy." The man said with a smile.

"My pleasure. If you don't mind though, I have work to do." The woman said, smiling back.

"Of course, not a problem. There's always work in a Pokécenter."

The woman left the room once more and the man now turned back to us.

"Hi there." He said while stepping towards us.

Hale and I both took a step back, still unsure of what was going on.

"Don't be afraid, he won't bite." The Quilava said with a chuckle.

"The name is Paul, I'm the one who brought you to the Pokémon center. You were both in some serious trouble so I decided to help out." The man said.

"You helped us out?" Hale asked.

"He won't understand a word you say, Pikachu. Humans don't understand Pokélanguage, just like how we can't talk in humespeak." The Quilava said.

Paul looked a bit lost as they were talking, the poor sod could indeed not understand a single word of what we were saying. He scratched the back of his head and smiled sheepishly. "Why am I even trying…?" He said whilst shaking his head. "Anyway, I need to get ourselves some supplies to prepare ourselves for the oncoming gym challenge and roadtrip. I'll be back later."

He turned around and walked towards the door. "Pyrus, you should stay here and meet and greet with our new friends. Fill them in a bit." He said before leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

"Righto boss!" The Quilava exclaimed cheerfully.

Hale winced and for a second I thought I spotted some sadness in his eyes. But he simply closed them and shook his head, before stepping towards Pyrus whilst clearing his throat.

"The name is Nichol- … Hale." He said, smiling as he reached out his paw and shook it with Pyrus'.

"And I'm Leaf." I quickly added.

The Quilava looked the both of us over and replied with a grin. "Nice to meet ya, I'm Pyrus."

"So Pyrus, do you mind telling us what's going on?" I asked him.

"Well, as Paul said before, you two were in some serious trouble. We saw how the both of you were being attacked by a swarm of pissed off bugs and decided to help out. Unfortunately you were both knocked out, but we still managed to expel the swarm with some boom berries…"

"Boom berries?" I cut him off, unsure of what those were.

"It's a name I use for Tomato berries, because they react heavily when exposed to intense heat. They basically explode with a loud bang, that's why I call them boom berries. Some crazy Charmander taught me that once. Pretty handy, lemme tell ya." He explained, not bothered at all by my sudden interruption.

"Sounds pretty handy for a fire type, indeed." I said.

"So, where was I?"

"You were talking about you fending off the swarm of bugs with boom berries." Hale informed him.

"Oh yes. So we got rid of those bugs and found both of you unconscious. Because we weren't sure just how badly injured you were and the Pokémon center was far off, Paul decided it'd be safest to just put the both of you into Pokéballs…"

"Wait what! He just captured us!" I exclaimed with a disgruntled tone.

"Well, yes. He had to. It was way easier to carry your around in Pokéballs." Pyrus countered.

"So… were his Pokémon now? He owns us?" Hale asked with an agitated tone in his voice.

"Hey, hey! Don't worry! It really isn't that bad to be owned by a trainer. Especially a trainer like Paul who takes great care for Pokémon and treats us like friends." Pyrus said.

"That doesn't matter! He captured us while we were unconscious! He took away our freedom while we were unable to fight back! That isn't fair!" I exclaimed with my temper flaring up.

"Yeah, but that was because you were in danger! We had to do it to help you out. That's how you ended up here in the Pokémon center safely." Pyrus countered.

Hale and I both looked at each other, trying to figure out what to do when Pyrus continued speaking.

"Look, Paul is a trainer and he is going for the Pokémon league. I'm… We're not asking you to stick with us all the way, but we need your help for the first Pokémon gym here in Pewter city."

"Pokémon gyms? You mean those places where Pokémon trainers have to go to battle and show their worth?" I asked, having heard from them before from the trainers passing by the Sprout Tower.

"Yeah, trainers have to fight the leader of the gym, who is basically a very strong trainer. If they win the battle, the trainers get a badge to prove that they defeated said gym. To get into the Pokémon league, a trainer needs to collect at least 8 badges." Pyrus elaborated.

Hale shrugged as I glanced over at him. Though the travelling around to collect badges did sound fun to me, I was still not comfortable with being owned by a trainer.

"Just help us out for this one gym, after that you can decide for yourself if you want to stick with us or go to the wild again." Pyrus pledged.

Hale scratched his chin in contemplation and looked over at me.

"What do you think Leaf? We do kind of owe these two for saving the both of us." He said as he raised one of his eyebrows.

I sighed and shook my head. "Well… I guess helping them out wouldn't hurt. Might make for some good training for us as well." I said after a moment of consideration.

"I was getting sick of fighting bugs in Viridian forest anyway." Hale said with a grin.

"Alright Pyrus, we're up for it. We'll help you." I said solemnly. "But no travelling around in Pokéballs, the idea of being trapped in one of those things is unbearable." I quickly added.

Pyrus smiled and nodded his head. "I'm sure we can work something out, thanks you guys."

I was about to ask Pyrus what to expect from this city's gym when Paul walked into the room again with a large backpack on his back.

"I'm back! Got enough food and other supplies to travel all the way to the Indigo plateau and back!" He said cheerfully. "So let's get going, we got work to do."

We followed Paul throughout the Pokémon center and eventually left the building after he filled in some paperwork at the reception.

"I trust you informed our new associates of our plans Pyrus?" Paul asked.

Pyrus nodded, as it was the only way he could communicate with Paul.

"Good, now before we head to the gym, I want to see what you guys are capable off, so let's have a little practice battle." Paul said as he turned to Hale and I.

"Should be interesting." Hale said with a smirk.

"Yup, no better way to get to know each other than a good scrap." Pyrus agreed.

We walked up to a small grass field next to the Pokémon center where Paul stopped walking and turned around to face us.

"Alright Pikachu and Oddish, why don't you guys do some sparring? This field seems like the perfect place."

Hale nodded and started walking over to the other side of the field.

"That's our call, let's do this!" He yelled as he took his place across the field with a smirk on his muzzle.

"Don't worry, I'll make this quick!" I yelled back, also with a smirk.

"I'm the quick one here Leaf, don't you forget that!" He yelled with a wide grin as he dropped to all fours and dashed towards me with dazzling speed, clearing the field in no time.

I didn't even have the time to actually think about dodging him and was hit hard by his quick attack, knocking me back a few feet. I muttered some curses as I got back up and saw how Hale was grinning at me with his cheeks sparking.

"Problem, Leaf?" He said with a mocking tone in his voice.

He used a Thunderbolt on me, but I diverted all the electricity into the ground, something only grass and ground types could do.

Hale's grin disappeared as he saw how I was completely untouched by his attack. The fact that I used my vines to slam right into his muzzle might have had something to do with the disappearance of his grin as well.

"Nope." I said with a grin of myself as I now constricted my vines around his body and lifted him into the air, keeping him there for a few seconds whilst considering what attack to use next.

"Absorb!" I eventually yelled. Hale was engulfed by a red glow and I felt how I was absorbing his energy whilst gaining strength myself by the second.

Hale clenched his teeth as he was struggling to get out of my vines' grip. He eventually managed to get himself out, but I had sapped a lot of energy out of him. He was panting because of the energy he had lost and backed up a bit to make sure he was out of my vines' range.

"Damn, those vines are annoying." He said with a wry smirk.

"You need some time to pull yourself back together?" I asked with a chuckle.

"Yeah... Done!" He yelled as he shot forward again.

This time I didn't have time to use my vines to deflect him nor to dodge him. So I just used my latest addition to my movepool. I concentrated all my power and shot out a large glowing seed towards Hale. He didn't seem bothered by this at all however as he just kept moving. It was at this point I noticed his tail had changed colour, it now had a silver-coloured glow and was shining brightly.

Less than a second before the seed was going to struck him, Hale somersaulted and slashed the seed into half using his tail. I gawped as I saw the two pieces fall to the ground while Hale kept on dashing towards me, his tail still glowing silver. I couldn't move aside to dodge out of sheer amazement and was hit by Hale's tail with full force as he leaped towards me. The blow sent me flying back a few meters and dazed me for a few seconds, making me unable to get up for a minute.

It was Hale however who brought me back to my feet by pulling me up with a concerned look.

"Are you… okay?" He asked.

"Ouch, my poor head…" I muttered out.

"Sorry, I kind of overdid that last attack." Hale said with an apologetic tone.

"What **was** that last attack?" I asked, confounded.

"Iron Tail. The Raichu Elder taught me the basics on how to use that move when you were gone to find your miracle seed. It didn't work too well when I was a Pichu, but now that I evolved it seems like it's pretty effective." He explained whilst grinning sheepishly.

"Whoa, that was brutal!" I heard Pyrus exclaim as he walked up. A bit too cheerful to my tastes as I just got hit really hard in the face.

Paul was walking right behind him with a concerned look on his face. "Are you alright Oddish? Man, that was rough. Pikachu, you better watch out when using that attack." He said.

Hale and I both nodded whilst giving him a smile to let him know that I was alright.

Paul let out a sigh of relief and smiled back. "Alright, let's get back to the Pokémon center to eat some dinner." He said as he turned around and headed towards the Pokémon center.

"Man, Hale, that attack was awesome, I wish I could learn it. Too bad I don't have a tail…" Pyrus said with a small grin as we were following Paul.

"It's a pretty nice attack alright." Hale admitted.

"Yeah, tell me about it." I said whilst rubbing my muzzle with one of my vines.

"It'll come in handy for the gym tomorrow, lemme tell ya that." Pyrus said. "But first things first. Let's go eat!."

**There we go, chapter 4 is now history. Next chapter we'll get to see the gym battle, from Leaf's POV again. I'll probably get it up by next ****Saturday as this is going to be yet another busy school week for me (It's all worth it though, I got a week off school after this week). ****Don't forget to review this people, I need reviews.**

**Cheers**


	6. Chapter 5

Pokémon is copyright to Nintendo and Gamefreak. I do not own Pokémon.

**Well, look what we have here. A short chapter from Hale's POV. I was going to include the gym battle in Chapter 5 from Leaf's POV first but I'll postpone that till Chapter 6. Instead, we get a very short chapter about Hale thinking about the situation he's in.**

**Enjoy!**

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Chapter 5

**(Hale's POV)**

The dinner we had several hours before at the Pokécenter was great. It was so good to be eating warm meals again, even if it was still Pokégrub. After all, for the month that I had lived in Viridian forest the only things I had eaten were berries, fruits and nuts, so the change of diet was a welcoming one.

After dinner we had decided to stay at the Pokécenter for the night. Leaf, Pyrus and Paul appeared to be very tired as they all wanted to go to bed as soon as possible. Right now, the three of them were sleeping in the same bedroom I found myself in. It was a different room than the one me and Leaf had woken up in earlier today, as there were only two beds. Leaf, Pyrus and I were lying on one of the beds on top of the sheets while Paul was sleeping in the other one. I was the only one awake as all three of them were snoring and drooling in their sleep. I just couldn't sleep for some reason, even though the battle with Leaf I had today had been very tiring (Absorb is a crazy thing, it's kind of odd feeling all your energy slowly leave your body). I guess I had a lot on my mind back then. So much stuff had happened in the last few days ever since I had met Leaf.

I had to admit that coming back to the civilized world was a shock to me. It reminded me of the life I lived before all of this happened… It made me look back to the first days of my transformation into a Pokémon. It all seemed so weird, unreal and foreign to me back then; the whole world being big and scary looking like that was simply frightening. That plus the fact that that voice in my head occasionally visited me whilst I was sleeping to talk to me. I hate to admit this, but it was kind of comforting to know that there was someone out there who knew what happened to me and how big of a mess I was in, even though I didn't understand what he was talking about half of the time.

He had also saved my life on several occasions - three times to be exact – so I guess I should be grateful to him for taking such care of me. I just wished I knew where the voice came from and who it belonged too, as the speaker had refused to reveal his identity whenever I asked about it. I knew it had to be a psychic Pokémon, as those were the only ones that could use telepathy.

"_Just like how Strela could use telepathy to talk and read my mind…" _I thought to myself with a wry smirk.

I really missed Strela and was truly worried about her. The first few days after my transformation, I had searched for her all around Viridian forest and even went to Viridian city, despite the dangers that lurked there for a small Pokémon like me. The voice in my head disapproved of this however. He told me that she wasn't around Viridian anymore, as he couldn't sense her presence around the area. So I eventually gave up on searching her, instead opting for living deep within Viridian forest, far away from any trainers that wanted to catch me.

"_And yet here I am, under ownership of this guy._" I thought whilst glancing over at the sleeping Paul.

The thought of being an actual Pokémon still scared me, and the fact that I was now going to be used by a Pokémon trainer to battle other Pokémon only amplified this. And yet I knew I couldn't just stay stuck in the past, there was no point in fretting over the situation I was in. I had started to accept the fact that I was a Pokémon now and that I might never turn back into a human again. But I knew I shouldn't give up hope either, you never know after all.

Nevertheless, I knew I wasn't going to go back to Viridian forest. Not with those swarms of pissed off bugs around. They had never been a real problem in the past, but right now they were a downright threat to every single living creature in the forest. I wasn't sure what triggered this sudden hostile behavior, but I had the feeling that a certain group of well known individuals were behind it. A group with who I still had a bone to pick for inflicting this entire calamity on me, for separating me from Strela and for fucking trying to kill me.

And with the thought of frying Clyde with a Thunderbolt, I finally lulled myself into sleep.

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**There we go, short and sweet. Well… maybe not so sweet, but short nonetheless!**

**Please review, I don't care if its anonymous or not. Just take a small bit of time to tell me what you think of the story and what to improve, as it's the only way I can improve. (I also need a betareader, badly)**

**Cheers**


	7. Chapter 6

**! ANOUNCEMENT: **Please check out my profile and read the update **!**

Pokémon is copyright to Nintendo and Gamefreak. I do not own Pokémon.

**So much dialogue in that first part… I can't believe the amount of filler I've put in here. But we still get to see the first gymbattle… or at least the first part of the gymbattle.**

**I've been reworking some of the previous chapters, removing errors and changing some minor details. I've also added some character sheets on my profile (more to come very soon).**

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Chapter 6

**(Leaf's POV)**

"Hurry up Leaf! There's a gymbattle waitin' for us!" Pyrus exclaimed cheerfully as he walked in front of our little group that was walking through the city.

"Yeah, yeah. Keep your fur on." I retorted as I kept walking last in the group.

We had left the Pokécenter 10 minutes ago and were now making our way through the streets of Pewter City heading towards the local gym. Paul had wanted us to get in our Pokéballs, but I refused politely (By grabbing all three balls with my vines and tossing them out of a window). To be quite honest, I was a bit moody that day - I hadn't slept that well that night and my head still felt a bit sore because of the Iron tail Hale had used on me that previous day.

"Yeah Leaf, c'mon, cheer up." Hale said as he glanced over at me with a smirk.

"You just make sure your tail is ready to hit some more stuff with it; this battle isn't going to be a 'friendly' little scrap like we had yesterday." I retorted with a glare.

"Hey, I apologized for that!" Hale countered.

"Forgiven but not forgotten."

"Whoa, you seem a bit moody!" Pyrus exclaimed still very cheerfully.

"Not moody, just more serious about the upcoming battle." I said.

Hale looked over at me and cocked his eyebrow.

"Alright, Alright. Maybe I am a bit moody today…" I admitted with a sour look on my muzzle.

I was a bit nervous about the oncoming battle too. Pyrus explained a lot of stuff about gym battles and trainer battles and I had only heard from him this morning that the gym used Rock and Ground types - which meant that I was the only one with an advantage and which also meant that I was certainly going to be on the front lines in this battle. I just had to make sure I stayed calm and kept my emotions under control during the battle.

"Alright folks, we're here!" Paul said as he stepped towards a large… brown rock?

Large was actually an understatement, as it had to be at least 20 meters high. It was no ordinary rock either, as there was a wooden door in the front, enabling us to go inside.

"Now that's a rock!" Pyrus exclaimed with a grin.

"What's a rock like this doing in a city? Is this the Pewter gym?" I asked completely in awe of the impressive structure.

"That's what the sign says above the door." Hale said.

"You can read Humespeak?" Pyrus asked with wide eyes.

"Yeah, yeah I can." Hale said with an embarrassed smile on his muzzle.

"How did learn to read?" Pyrus pressed.

"Erm, I just picked it up somewhere." Hale replied with a toothy smirk.

"_Avoiding to talk about his past, again._" I thought to myself with a sigh. It was obvious to Pyrus that Hale wasn't going to say anything more about it so he just dropped the subject. Too bad, my curiosity was almost killing me. First things first however; we had a gymbattle to win. Hale must have thought the same thing as he was the first to enter the building through the large wooden doors. The three of us followed and we soon found ourselves to be in the middle of a large room, scattered with rocks of all sizes and measures. The room was well lit with large floodlights that were hanging on the walls of the room and a white line was drawn in a rectangle shape around the rocks.

"A challenger appears!" A voice shouted from somewhere in the room.

I soon spotted the source of the voice; a man was standing besides one of the white lines of the room with two flags in his hands.

"I'm the gym's referee," The man continued. "introduce yourself and state your business."

"My name I Paul, I come from the Orange archipelago and want to challenge this gym." Paul said.

"Are you a registered trainer in Kanto?" The man asked.

"I am." Paul said whilst showing a card with a picture of him and some stuff written on it.

"Very well, I shall inform the gymleader of your challenge, he'll be here shortly." The man said before walking off to one of the doors in the room.

"Paul is from the Orange Islands?" I asked.

"Yep! So am I, by the way." Pyrus replied.

"The Orange Islands?" Hale asked, lifting one of his eyebrows.

"It's an island group south of the Sevii Islands." Pyrus explained.

"… The Sevii islands?" Hale asked, with a sheepish grin.

Pyrus chuckled at hearing this. "Another island group, just south of Kanto."

"Oh… Kanto?" Hale asked once again.

Pyrus and I gave him a funny look upon hearing this.

"Are you serious Hale?" I asked, hoping that he wasn't.

"Nah, I'm just screwing with ya." He laughed.

I rolled my eyes whilst Pyrus chuckled once more. Paul looked over at us, trying to figure out what was so funny. Poor bastard.

"Anyway, Paul is indeed from the Orange islands and he caught me there during his travels." Pyrus continued.

"Oh, you guys traveled around there?" I asked jealously.

"Yup, Paul collected all of the badges there and challenged the champion." Pyrus informed me.

"You guys fought the champion?" I asked surprised at hearing this.

"Well we did kind of lose. Actually, we lost really badly. It was a six on six battle and we only took down 2 of the champion's Pokémon" Pyrus admitted with a sheepish grin on his muzzle.

"Wait, Paul has more Pokémon than the three of us?" I asked.

"Yeah, but they after our defeat Paul kind of stopped training for a while. Several of the others just left us to go live their lives, while others decided to stay at Paul's home when we set off to Kanto." Pyrus explained.

The three of us had been looking over to Paul during the entire conversation now and I could see he was getting uncomfortable from the stares.

"What? Why are you staring at me like that?" He asked, raising his eyebrow.

I hoped he wasn't expecting any answers from us as we couldn't talk in humespeak. Which really was a pity considering that if we did, we could tell him our names and prevent him from referring to us as 'Oddish' and 'Pikachu'.

"I hope this guy knows what he's doing." I said with a sigh.

"Oh, don't worry about that. Paul doesn't give out any orders during battle. We have to make our own decisions in battle." Pyrus said with a smile.

"Wait, what?" I asked with a puzzled look.

"Well, Paul doesn't believe in ordering us around on the battlefield, as he thinks that we're the ones that should be making the decisions. He will, however, give us advice during the battle." Pyrus explained.

"Good. Him shouting out which attacks we're about use and thus warning the opponent is silly anyway. Besides, we know how to handle ourselves in battle." Hale said with a grin.

Hale was right, I always found it weird that humans would always shout out the attack they were about to use and thus remove the element of surprise. Though there was one thing that bothered me.

"Wow Hale, since when did you get this confident? Back in Viridian forest you always opted to avoid fights." I asked, genuinely surprised at the change of attitude.

"Well, back then I was still a Pichu who could barely control its own electricity. Now however, I'm a Pikachu who's able to use Thunderbolts and Iron Tail." He said with a grin.

Before I was able to answer, a new voice sounded from across the battlefield. A man wearing orange sweater and army green trousers was standing on the edge of the white line across the room. His skin was darker than Paul's and he had black spiky hair.

"Paul! I am Brock the gymleader of Pewter city and I accept your challenge." He exclaimed.

The referee was back too. He was standing on one of the sidelines, still with two flags in his hands.

"This battle will be three on three and will be over when both Pokémon from either sides are unable to continue to battle. Only the challenger is allowed to substitute his Pokémon during the battle." He said.

Paul glanced over to us and pointed towards Pyrus.

"Alright Pyrus buddy, you up to go in first?" He asked.

Pyrus cheered and ran towards the battlefield. He jumped on top of one of the rocks and laid down on it casually, like nothing important was going on.

"That guy is way too cheerful for his own good." I said with a sigh.

"He doesn't lack for enthusiasm, that's for sure." Hale said with a grin.

Meanwhile, the gymleader had chosen his Pokémon as well, as he threw out one of his Pokéballs. The Pokémon that came out of it was… well… basically it was a walking tree. It had a brown, log-shaped body with some yellow spots on it and had short legs with toe-less feet. It also had club shaped hands that looked like some leaves that were bunched up together in a ball and had a forked branch on top of its head. Hale and I both looked at each other with a puzzled look upon seeing the plant-like appearance.

"Wasn't this supposed to be a rock type gym? Because that thing certainly doesn't look like a rock type." I asked confounded.

"That's what I thought too." Hale said, also confounded.

Paul stared with some suspicion at the Pokémon, it didn't seem like he was too sure of what was going on either.

Pyrus seemed a bit confused as well, but decided not to get too distracted and ignited the red spots on his back instead. Hale winced at the sight of this and gave an even more confounded look at me.

"Don't worry." I said, having seen many Quilava back in Johto and knowing that they needed to fire up to battle. "It's necessary for a Quilava to do that in order to use its fire attacks." I explained.

"Shouldn't his fur be burning up by now? I know mine would." Hale said with a smirk, slightly more comforted.

"Quilava's fur is non-flammable, so it can withstand flame attacks. It even absorbs the fire and makes said Quilava's fire moves more powerful." I informed him.

"Neat." He said with a grin.

Pyrus didn't seem to want to waste any more time and curled up as his fire started blazing intensely, covering the entire body of the Quilava with flames. Moments later, he started rolling quickly towards the tree thing. I could see the trail of ashes he left behind and gulped at the thought of the intense flames. I - as a grass type - had never been too fond of fire. The other Pokémon didn't seem to be fazed by the Flame wheel at all though, which worried me.

"Sudowoodo, Sucker punch!" The Gym leader shouted.

The Pokémon complied to his trainer's order and shot out with one of its 'hands' engulfed in a dark glow. Before Pyrus could do anything, the Sudowoodo slammed its 'fist' into Pyrus' Flame wheel, stopping him dead in his tracks and even knocking him a few meters back. I couldn't believe my eyes, that thing had just blocked a flame wheel… with its hand?

"Impossible." I muttered.

"That's no grass type, I'm afraid." Hale said.

Pyrus however, didn't seem to realize this just yet; as he opened his mouth and released a massive stream of fire towards the Pokémon whom got completely engulfed by it.

"You burn, you learn!" Pyrus exclaimed with a wide grin.

His grin quickly vanished however, as the Pokémon suddenly shot out from the stream of flames and slammed into Pyrus with astounding force. Pyrus was thrown back from the impact and smashed into one of the large rocks behind him. Pyrus fell to the ground; unconscious from the blow. The referee raised both flags and declared Pyrus unable to continue battling. Paul ran over to the downed Quilava and picked him up, carrying him away from the battlefield. I looked over to the Sudowoodo and saw how its body almost didn't get any burns from the Flamethrower that Pyrus had used before.

"_Definitely no grass type_." I thought to myself.

Paul had reached us once again and put the still unconscious Pyrus on the ground next to me.

"Keep an eye on him Oddish." Paul said, before turning to Hale. "Pikachu, your turn. That thing is a pure rock type, which means that electric attack will work. So I suggest you try and keep some distance from it."

Hale nodded and walked towards the battlefield, cracking his neck as he went. I looked over to Pyrus - who was still out cold – and saw how he, fortunately, didn't seem to have any serious injuries. I wanted to use reverse Absorb to transfer some of my energy to him, but decided not to as I would need all the energy I had for the upcoming battles.

I turned back towards the battlefield and saw how the battle had started again. Hale was jumping from rock to rock whilst the Sudowoodo was throwing medium sized rocks at him. Hale's speed and agility, however, caused all of the incoming rocks to miss as he kept leaping from rock to rock. The Sudowoodo realized that it was no use keeping up his barrage and paused, giving Hale the time to stop running and fire off a Thunderbolt towards the Pokémon. The Gymleader quickly yelled 'Mimic' to his Pokémon. It didn't take a genius to figure out what that meant. And indeed, another thunderbolt was shot off by the Sudowoodo, colliding with Hale's Thunderbolt and letting out a small explosion.

"_Guess keeping distance won't work." _ I thought to myself.

Hale's eyes widened as he saw his attack get blocked and shook his head as if he thought he was dreaming and was trying to wake up. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't dreaming, and if he was, then the next attack from the Rock-type would certainly wake him up. The Sudowoodo shot forward and slammed its body into Hale; it was the same attack it had used on Pyrus before and seemed to be quite effective once again as Hale was sent flying and skidded over the ground before coming to a full stop, flat on his stomach.

The gym leader was eager to wrap this one up as he ordered his Pokémon to use Focus Punch. The Sudowoodo followed the order and shot forward with his fist engulfed in a white glow, ready to deal the final blow. I muttered some curses as it didn't seem like Hale had recovered from the previous blow yet and was still laying flat on the ground. An easy target for the Rock type's Focus punch. Just as the Sudowoodo tried to strike however, Hale suddenly jumped up very high and dodged the punch with amazing speed.

"Agility, shit yeah!" He yelled as he somersaulted with his tail glowing bright silver once again. Just as the Sudowoodo looked up to look at him, Hale smashed his tail full power into the Pokémon's face. Hale dropped back to the ground on all fours and smirked at the Sudowoodo, who hadn't moved at all yet. Instead, the Rock type suddenly fell over onto the ground, unconscious.

"Sudowoodo is unable to battle, Pikachu is the winner!" The referee yelled out as the gymleader recalled his fallen Sudowoodo.

"Alpha male status confirmed!" Hale exclaimed with a triumphant smirk as he turned to look at us.

I couldn't help but let out a giggle. Paul, too, seemed to be happy and relieved that Hale had won. Pyrus was still out, so I decided to poke him with one of my vines which made him stir. I cocked an eyebrow and poked him once again, this time he released a small grunt and opened one of his eyes.

"About time you woke up from your beauty sleep." I said with a smile.

Pyrus tried getting up and stood on four trembling paws, he shook his head and blinked a few times.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

"Ugh, I'm feelin' pretty shitty… a bit woozy too… Well, the woozy's kinda fun actually." He said with a small grin as he sat down again, probably too dizzy to stay standing.

"You did get hit pretty hard, but don't worry, Hale took care of that thing." I said as I glanced over to Hale.

Because I had been so busy with Pyrus, I hadn't noticed that the gymleader had sent out his next Pokémon. And believe it or not, it looked even weirder than the Sudowoodo. It was basically a big rock with four arms sticking out of it, nothing else to say about it really.

Hale stood on his hind paws and his were cheeks sparking. I could see that he was charging up his power to unleash a Thunderbolt.

"Pikachu, that's a Graveler! Both Rock and Ground type! Electric attacks won't work!" Paul yelled over at Hale as he saw what he was planning.

Hmmm, that complicated things. Thunderbolt was out of the question and Quick attack would hurt Hale more than it would hurt the Graveler. Which meant Hale could only use his Iron tail, which should be quite effective.

Hale dropped on all fours and dashed off at incredible speed once again, moving around the battlefield at incredible speed. The slower Graveler could never match this kind of speed. Rock types always tended to be quite slow and this one didn't seem like an exception to me. Hale circled around the Pokémon, whom was unable to keep track of Hale's quick movements. Hale took advantage of this and moved in on the Graveler whilst it was facing the other direction. The Pikachu was indeed charging his Iron tail as I had expected him to and leaped towards the Rock type. He struck his tail in the back of its head, making the Graveler scream in agony. The Rock Pokémon wasn't going to let Hale get away with that however as it turned around with surprising speed and grabbed hold of Hale's tail. Hale was completely stunned by the quick movement and didn't even try to get free of its hold. The Graveler laughed loudly and smashed Hale into the ground, head first.

The three of us winced as we saw how a small cloud of dust formed around the Pikachu. Graveler let go of Hale and started casually walking away. As if it was pretty confident in Hale being knocked out. Unfortunately, the Rock Pokémon was proven right as Hale was indeed unconscious after the blow.

"Pikachu is unable to battle, Graveler wins!" The referee shouted.

Paul rushed over to the battlefield once more, picking Hale up and carrying him back to us.

"Thanks Pikachu, you did well." He said to the unconscious Hale and then turned to me. "Oddish, it's all up to you now. Do your best."

I sighed and headed over to the battlefield, there was still another Pokémon left if I took this one down. This wouldn't be easy…

"Don't worry Leaf! You'll win for sure!" I heard Pyrus cheer behind me.

I jumped on top of one of the rocks in the battlefield and stared at the Graveler. I really had to watch out with getting too close to him, those fists looked like they could do some major damage. I doubted he had any long range attacks though, something I did have **and** they were super effective. I looked over at the referee just as he shouted '_Ready? Continue!_' and heard how there was something rolling around towards me. I looked over just in time to see how the Graveler had curled himself up and was now rolling around the battlefield at high speed.

I jumped off the rock as the Graveler struck it and saw how it was split in two, the Rock Pokémon simply smashing through it like it was nothing. It kept coming at me full speed, dodging wouldn't work… unless… I spotted a tall rock shaped like a menhir and warped my vines around and pulled myself on top of the rock. Just seconds later, the Graveler smashed into this rock as well. This time however, the rock didn't break and the Pokémon was put to a halt. The Graveler didn't waste time however, as he instantly jumped up with all of his fists engulfed in a white glow.

Mere moments before he would strike however, I managed to charge up a Seed bomb and lobbed it right into the face of the Graveler. Because it was only inches away, it didn't have a chance to even consider dodging it and thus got hit right on. The explosion knocked us both back in opposite directions and we fell from the large rock onto the ground. I didn't want to waste any time and got up almost instantly after hitting the ground.

The Graveler however, stayed down on the ground and appeared to be knocked out cold. Not too surprising after getting hit by a super effective seed bomb from up close. Fortunately; the explosion had only dazed me a bit and hadn't caused any damage.

The referee raised both of his flags once again and declared Graveler unable to continue the battle. Good, two down. One more to go.

"I'm impressed." The gymleader said with a small grin. "But this isn't over just yet, believe me." He continued as he took out another ball.

I quickly glanced over to Paul and the rest and saw how Hale had regained consciousness. He grinned and gave me a nod as he looked over at me. I diverted my gaze back to the gymleader who sent out his third and last Pokémon.

Now, the Sudowoodo looked weird and so did the Graveler. But what I saw now, coming out of that Pokéball, made me gasp. A huge snake made out of rocks materialized in front of me - it had to be at least 9 meters high and it looked really dangerous and pissed off. It let out an incredibly loud and fierce roar upon spotting me and smashed its tail into the ground repeatedly, causing the ground to tremble.

"This could be troublesome."

* * *

**Long gymbattle is loooooooooong. I'm not used to writing battles, so this took me a while. Please do tell me what you think about it.**

**No promises for next chapter, I'm not sure when I'll finish that one. It's most likely going to be from Hale's POV and will be about the same size as this one…. I think. I guess you could also see it as the final chapter of the first arc.**

**Review please; I need to know what to improve.**

**Cheers**


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